Customer Reviews

Clockworks, Juliet

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I love every song on this album and frequently just listen to the entire album. The songs all have similar sounds, so it's nice to just listen to them all in a row, like different movements of a long piece, but they're different enough I only feel like I'm listening to the same thing over and over again in a *good* way. It's nice electronic stuff with a beat, some machine-oriented lyrics, and often a nice mood of melancholy as well as beauty and energy - sort of like goth and klezmer, if they were written as techno or ebm. Alan Replica is listed as Masq on the album Electricity II, which includes 'The Machines' from Clockworks. I hate trying to describe music in print reviews, but this album deserves a review and 5 stars. This album sort of sounds like a less angry Apoptygma Berzerk, a more gothy Spray, or S.P.O.C.K if they were a lot better & not singing about Star Trek.

With a name like Replica and song titles like The Machines, Soul Corruption and Dream Deceiver, comparisons to Gary Numan are bound to occur. Listening to the CD and reading the lyrics (from his website - no lyrics with the CD itself) makes Mr. Replica's study of Numan's back catalogue rather more obvious.

Trying to imitate Numan's lyrical phraseology and song structure is OK up to a point, but comes unstuck when you realise Numan's overall sound is based very much upon Numan's own voice and the way he sings. Unfortunately Mr. Replica hasn't got the voice to pull this off and he doesn't offer the listener much in the way of vocal range, style or passion either. In fact, most of the album is sung in a monotone `I've got a cold' kind of way. The most effective singers/vocalists have a distinctive voice and vocal delivery. Mr. Replica demonstrates little of either on this CD.

On to the music. Well, the opening track "Isolation" is actually pretty good. Musically. Lyrically it's awfully close to something Numan himself would have penned around 1979 or 1980. Strike 1! "Intrusion" borrows heavily from the live version of Numan's "Everyday I Die". Strike 2! "My Time Warp" is practically Numan's "We Have A Technical" all over again. Strike 3!

In between there are some solid and enjoyable moments of synth indulgence ala Numan, Ultravox, Tears for Fears and Depeche Mode. Overall though, you can't help feeling this effort is the amalgamation of half a dozen albums Mr. Replica must have listened to before sitting down to write is `own' material. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but when it's this close to your rather obvious influences it becomes plagiarism.

I first heard Alan Replica on the Electricity II various artists CD. The single 'Machines' was billed as being by Masq, his band in the 80s. Clockworks, Juliet takes the listener back to post-punk, pre-funk Numan, when cold robotic rhythms dominated the music. It's very reminiscent of Numan's 'The Pleasure Principle' and 'Telekon'. Replica immitates Numan's vocal style throughout the CD while adding his own style as well, and even includes a couple Numan covers, 'Factys II' and 'This Device'. Finally, Clockworks, Juliet attests to the brilliance of Gary Numan. More than 20 years after his greatest phase, he is still a big influence in the music world.

Hi,
Alan Replica 's official website was launched November, 1rst of 2005. The site offers full scale sections like News, Bio, Disc, Contact info and free Songs & Photos to collect. [...]

The first things that stroke me listening to the CD was the raw aspect of the recording which gives the sensation of a close presence like a live album, but also the overall even quality of the 14 songs. It shows the same attention and work was put in each song, which is quite rare to find on CD nowadays. The music is difficult to describe, it sounds like Joy Division/New Order (think Substance)meet Ultravox/Gary Numan (think Living Ornaments tour) meet Mary Chain/Ministry. The songs are like detachable fragments of a same piece, like an opera in some sense, though it's not boring as a concept album can be. I've been listening to this Cd over and over, and my favorite songs keep changing, which is a sign of a good CD that will stand the test of time for me, and it also seems to unveil new things each time. This is not a new color in electro rock, but it certainly brings new shades, and for this it's a ground breaking album.