Tubeway Army “Replicas” (1979)

Numan’s best record is a dark and sleazy, yet oddly sensual and visionary album. The cold textures of the synthesizers are contrasted with crunchy rhythm guitar and punchy post-punk rhythms, properly making a virtue of the music’s simplicity to convey a stripped down sense of horror, alienation, and sordid pleasures. The bizarre lyrics have an imagistic quality that rounds out the mood and unifies the album beautifully. At least seven tracks here are classics: “Me! I Disconnect from You,” “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?,” “The Machman,” “Down in the Park,” “You Are in My Vision,” the title cut, and “It Must Have Been Years.” The final two tracks are moody instrumentals evocative of the diminishing humanity of the whole thing. Few hit records from the late-70s/early-80s are so unified and consistently compelling. And few synth-rock albums have such inviting textures. This is creepy post-punk that’s also as fun as a wad of bubble gum. Me! I recommend to you. –Will