CD Reviews

The Human League | Credo

Wall of Sound (2011)

By DANIEL BROCKMAN | April 27, 2011

3.0 Stars

This year sees the release of yet another pathetic '80s rehash, a desperate plea for attention and relevance by a has-been by-product of an earlier, synthier decade, a record whose glossy sheen can't cover up the band's sad inability to pen a tune on a par with the hits that made them charttopping behemoths in an age gone by. But, hey, enough about the new Duran Duran, especially when Phil Oakey's Sheffield analog warriors, Human League, are still releasing crucial records that marry dance-floor swoon with hard-hitting keyboard whump. The current League sound would be a throwback to the band's earlier iterations, except that its mish-mash of the male-female back-and-forth of Dare era with the mutant, melted primitive electro of the earlier "Being Boiled" era makes Credo a throwback to an iteration that never actually existed. The dark intonations of "Egomaniac," for example, hark back more to sullen classics like "Sound of the Crowd" than to luscious pop hits like "Don't You Want Me." But the record isn't all thick eyeliner gloom and doom: lead single "Night People" finds Oakey in top crooning form, whereas "Sky" and "Electric Shock" showcase the trademark glistening ennui and distinctively glassy delivery of Susan Sulley and Joanne Catherall. The tunes are repetitive in the vein of Oakey's earliest industrial post-punk '70s rants, but with the angry friction of those heady times cooled off, like a trip to the corner after a heated outburst. And if the album doesn't quite attain the life-altering awesomeness of Dare — well, what album does, really?

Topics: CD Reviews , Music, The Human League, The Human League, More

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