Tubeway Army
Replicas

THE REVIEW

Second album for Tubeway Army, "Replicas" was released in 1979 and brought success to Gary Numan's band, who a few months later came out with his solo record "The Pleasure Principle." Both of these works are the British response to German kraut-rock.

With a glacial and androgynous look, a sharp and cutting voice, Gary Numan has the intuition to marry rock and post-punk sounds with electronics, producing music that successfully combines various influences, starting with a certain glam-rock from the early '70s: not just Bowie, but especially Marc Bolan and his T.Rex. In this album, this is evident when listening to tracks like "The Machman" (which, just in the title, nods to Kraftwerk's "The Man Machine," released the year before), "You Are in My Vision" and "It Must Have Been Years": solid guitar riffs, hard-hitting drums, obliging bass, and the rockers are satisfied.

But "Replicas" is above all the album of "Are Friends Electric?" and "Down in the Park", both emblematic examples of the "synthetic" rock that Numan has in mind: here, he is indebted especially to Kraftwerk (whom he draws inspiration from both in look and in futuristic and machiniste poetics) but also to emerging British bands like Ultravox, among the first to bring together traditional rock instrumentation with synthesizers.

The two previously mentioned tracks contribute to creating a particular aura around the character of Numan, who perfectly fits the role of the solitary and detached android: fans, struck by his alien appearance, call themselves Numanoids. The title-track "Replicas" and the two instrumental tracks with which the album concludes (at the time, no. 1 in UK charts) reaffirm the album's electro-rock approach, representing a very original solution in the transition between the ashes of punk and the coming decade, especially the one where the use of electronics will dominate, even if for more commercial and entertainment purposes. Thus, Gary Numan, from the opposite side - that of creative experimentation - was a forerunner.