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Here's the business card of this band from Akron, Ohio, arriving with "oh, no! it's DEVO", released in 1982, at the fifth album.
Question: would you introduce yourselves like this? Before answering, let's start the music. Here a synthesizer introduces us to the dreamlike landscape of this album: "tension rises on a contorted face, dark clouds in the crystal sphere," but it's still time to take a break for fun ("Time Out for Fun"). Second track, "Peek-A-Boo!", is the exclamation kids in Akron make when they hide and suddenly pop out: heavy synth rhythm and electric guitar chords, heard only here throughout the album.
The tension doesn't ease, on the contrary, with the portrait of a girl out of sync "missing a beat," who "entered through the exit," the rhythm becomes frantic ("Out of Sync"). And so it goes: veiled sexual undertones in "Explosions" ("there is nothing after stop-and-go, there's nothing but ebb and flow, nothing like a bit of in and out"), Devo keep us glued to our seats with an album lasting just 32 minutes and memorable for its best moments, "Out of Sync" indeed and "Big Mess," the latter with a driving rhythm in an effective counterpoint of voice and synthesizers.
Far from being a masterpiece, less caustic than the first two albums, this work still confirms the qualities of the five from Akron, a group with something to say but not taking itself too seriously. Theorists of devolution, the infantilization they believe characterizes American society, Devo present themselves here not with new ideas but with plenty of skill. They make us shake in our chairs (or in the middle of the living room if there's a party) and remind us of the ironic invitation from the album title: to shout all together, uncertain if with worry or relief, "oh no! the Devo!"
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