The music veteran, innovator and pretty much Thomas Edison of gothic synth and new wave has burst forth with a new stunner, Dead Son Rising (Mortal Records).

Gary Numan’s career, spanning over 30+ years, has led him down some interesting roads and into some interesting personas, both of which slouched in the dark side. An innovator, he was the future before the future became the present. He is best known in the U.S. for the 1979 robotic-electronica hit “Cars” and among musicians for such unsettling gems as “Down In The Park.” A time-forged original, Numan’s icy-calm, stiff-upper-lip delivery is most present on his latest and only contributes to the dark intensity as the surging, soaring music contrasts it.

“Dead Son Rising is a beautifully written, stark, spare song. It’s hard not to be half-hypnotized by lines like  ”And when you dream, we’ll come for you and breathe in your pain/ We’ve seen such things and hide them from you and so keep you pure or of angels.” Spooky! On “The Fall,” the reviewer conceivably could (and did) catch  herself thinking “Hey, the intro to “The Fall” sounds exactly like the opening to Nine Inch Nails’s “Head Like A Hole.” Flipping that thought around is key when you consider musically really who gave birth to whom. Reznor is a longtime admirer of Numan’s and the two have performed together multiple times. ”Big Noise Transmission” is an exceptional highlight on Dead Son Rising bringing emotional sledgehammer power and lyrics that describe hitting lower than bottom i.e. “I was hiding inside a dead soul.”

The grinding, strident quality on “Resurrection” could soundtrack a new adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s novel Crash about the merging of technology with sexuality. Even if Dead Son Rising had only half its content it could stand alone as a book of poetry or an album of instrumentals. The two halves come together here to make a really gloomy whole.

4 / 5 bars

Gary Numan – Dead Sun Rising by theQuietus

ARTROCKER EXCLUSIVE: GARY NUMAN / THE FALL by Artrocker Magazine