Penthouse and Pavement

Do danas sam samo znala Temptation i bila sam malo skeptična posebno jer sam vidjela ocjenu ovdje ali hejteri nemaju pojma, meni je prejak ovaj funky groovy anti-kapitalistički synth pop iako nije naj naj primjer žanra.

It's quite an unusual album this. The music in it is strangely engaging, even though it's a bit mad and frantic, and with weird synths. I'm not sure I've ever really heard anything else quite like it. It's very 80's in terms of production though. Way stripped-back sounding and without much oomph.

I'll be generous because I appreciate the weirdness.

2.5 rounded up.

that 80s sound!!!

You guys aren't ready for the cheesy might of 80s alternative pop and it shows

Better than Coldplay

(We don’t need this) fascist groove thang is such a good song title - the songs pretty good too but the rest of the album doesn’t live up to it

Es ist ein visionärer Synth-Pop-Meilenstein. Heaven 17 verbinden politische Schärfe, elektronische Präzision und unwiderstehlichen Funk zu einem Sound, der 1981 wie Zukunftsmusik wirkte und heute noch glänzt. Ein Album voller Ideen, Haltung und Groove – absolut zeitlos gestern und morgen 😊.

This wasn't awful but was far from decent. All the electronic albums on this list are such a snooze.

I think the author skews a bit towards some of the lesser known British acts.

I like Fascist Groove Thang, but the rest is a little ordinary, and a bit dated sounding.

banger intro into middling new wave.

Gähn

Surprising to me that, given this kind of weirdo stuff is my bent, I'd only ever heard the name. I liked it though I felt it was a little sparsely designed at times and perhaps a little to twee to be arch.

Uninspiring. And when it comes to rating this as an album, the remastered digital release I listened to is padded out with several versions of every song, diluting the experience further. Could've left that to a special edition or something.

The start does not bode well for this album, sounding very much like a low budget version of their Sheffield rivals The Human League. It goes on for what feels like an age before we reach more casio keyboard sounds of Penthouse and Pavement. I fear it is becoming quickly apparent why I only know Temptation (unfortunately not on this album). The one slightly redeeming feature so far is the occasional bass break.

Play to win is an accurate amalgam of all the cheesy elements of early eighties music.overall this just made me appreciate Human League more

Another stray thoughts review:

- this needed two listens as I had no idea what I thought about it after the first listen
- during (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thing at one point the bass sounded like Uptown Funk and I spent ages trying to work out why
- Let's All Make A Bomb has a bit in it that sounds like they rounded up a load of Premier League refs and got them to whistle along
- everything is too repetitive and too long (you could fix the latter by fixing the former)
- The Height Of The Fighting is bloody weird: HEAT! WAR! SWEAT! LAW!
- the bleepy bloopy synths often sound like they're playing a different song to the one everyone else is playing
- the bass player is *great*
- I really like the vocals. I cannot in any way justify that statement
- I actually liked We're Going To Live For A Very Long Time a lot until the point they repeated the title 1 billion tomes during the fade out.

This is a 2.5 for me. I objectively think I should probably hate it, but I don't. I'm rounding down to 2, but I really did consider rounding up instead.

2/5

Unremarkable but not terrible. Their second album (The Luxury Gap) is much better than this. The title track is a great synthpop song however

If this had been presented as AI slop I would have believed it.

Nunca me tomé en serio este grupo. Siempre lo vi como una especie de Depeche Mode prefabricados. No suenan tan mal pasado el tiempo y la primera canción, pues muy oportuna para los tiempos que corren: "(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang".

Ok that was really pretty great. The song Fascist Groove Thang is amazing and relevant today with all the maga bullshit going on in the usa. The last three songs on the album are a bit less attention grabbing than everything which precedes, but still a great album. 4.2/5 - 4/5