This was the third studio album of new material from Messer’s Foxx and Gordon. I certainly find it an improvement on its predecessor ‘Pleasures of Electricity’ reviewed elsewhere on this site, but that is not to say all is well.

So as to finish on a positive note I will first mention what I dislike. A couple of the songs are very thinly disguised rewrites of old numbers. Namely ‘She Robot’ is ‘Lieutenant 030’ off of Metamatic and ‘Ray 1/Ray 2’ goes back even further, being a retread of ‘Saturday Night in the City of the Dead’ from the first Ultravox album. To be fair if you are unfamiliar with the originals this need not be a problem, but like most fans I am. Some of the lyrics would make Brett Anderson and even Marc Bolan blush. ‘Sidewalking’ would be a good example of this with its ‘Sidewalking, one two three, Sidewalking, are you walking with me?’ rubbish.

In the middle ground we find a couple of slower numbers that fail to really go any where in my opinion. Some Foxx fans have been wetting themselves silly over the song ‘Drive’ as some sort of latter day master piece but it is lost on me I must say.

So on to the good stuff then. For me four songs really shine on this album. The title track is an excellent piece of dark electro cyber punk if ever I heard one. ‘Broken Furniture’ proves that Foxx can still write great lyrics and a top tune. The dancey electronics of ‘Ultraviolet/Infrared’ and ‘Dust and Light’ provide my other two favourites, the former with its hint of The Beatles towards the end, and the latter with it dark under current.

The remaining tracks are acceptable but this is still not an album I would rank alongside Foxx’s last two albums with Ultravox, or his first three solo albums from the early eighties. If this were a school report I would have to conclude ‘could do better’.