Customer Reviews

Jagged

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

If you like Numan's more recent stuff (Exile, Pure), you'll probably like this. If you're looking for his 70s-80s sound, you might not. I like his overall body of work, with various high points sprinkled throughout, from Down in the Park through Dominion Day. Some people just want to hear rehashes of Cars. Not me. I like the "dark" and "heavy" quality of the more recent stuff (and, yes, I like Nine Inch Nails, so you know where I'm coming from). One thing that always works across the board for Numan is his unique voice. No matter what the music sounds like his instantly recognizable voice stands out.

Gary Numan's 17th studio album follows the same themes and sound explored in Sacrifice, Exile, and Pure. These are all explorations of the social function of religion, and its relationship to love. One need pay no attention to the negative reviews of this disc. It is not simply a repeat of the previous three musical explorations of the dark side. The opening number clocks in at 5:19, introduced by a reverberant acoustic and dark lyrics. Several writers have criticized the extended, atmospheric introductions. I disagree. They are instead highly creative and evocative. Pressure invokes the color black in association with an apparently disastrous end to a love affair. At 5:47, Fold is a good follow-up, a bit less negative than the first. Halo is the third strong entry in a row. After a mysterious, pulsating introduction, Numan breaks out into a less comprehensible vocal line about failed love that questions God's commitment to humanity. The sound is heavily processed, and Numan's voice is buried under innumerable layers of electronic harmony. The first three songs share a minor-key, falling melodic line. At 4:17, the relatively short Halo gives way to another echoic soundscape, filled with distant howls. This is the 6:02 Slave. The coda is especially impressive, the echos dying away to leave nothing but electric piano. The fifth piece is In a Dark Place, 6:06. Here Numan reveals a far more open and questioning voice than in Pure, or even Exile. Speaking of God, he cries: "Sometimes I call out for you, and sometimes I'm afraid." Haunted (5:29) begins with a sound reminiscent of Led Zeppelin. The lyrics of this song effectively evoke how love and death are related: "And this is not my face, not my voice, not my life, It belongs to you." At 7:01, the longest song on this album, Blind, features yet another spooky beginning, and another melodic line in quite the same vein as those of the previous songs is introduced. The blackness of the opening number is now revisited, and the referent of the metaphor becomes clearer. As in previous outings, Numan is exploring failed love in the larger, theoretical context. In this setting, though, he is significantly less arrogant, more beaten, guilt-ridden, and desperate. In Blind, as in the other numbers, this is presented in a wall of throbbing, electronica rock. At 5:14. "Before You Hate It" is a relatively subdued rocker. "Once is always so don't call me," the love-obsessed singer commands. The next song, Melt, at 5:18, features a monster bass line. There is a bit of choral backup in this appealing song: "Sometimes I wonder if a soul can try." Here, Numan is at his most explicitly anti-religious: "I don't think He died for me." The 6:02 Scanner returns to the theme of love, and the melodic line actually rises a bit, giving a slightly stronger and optimistic feel to the music. Jagged, 5:23 opens with yet more industrial atmospherics, giving way to a synthesized orchestral sound and a whispered lyric. The relationship between love and God is made clearer. The songwriter rejects the condemnation by the church of unstated sexual feelings or actions. The single bonus track on this disc is a catchy, busy 4:44 remix of Fold. While none of the ideas here is particularly shocking or new in light of previous ventures down the path of a religious iconoclast, the sound has evolved. These songs will mix nicely with gyrating bodies on a high-tech dance floor. At 65:42. this is yet another generously filled and highly professional exploration.
Having observed all of the above regarding Numan's latest entry, there is much that is appealing about pre-Sacrifice Numan, namely a generally large assemblage of excellent studio musicians. I remember particularly the appealing ways in which saxophone and fretless bass were used to impart a jazzy, improvised feel to so many Numan records. Instead, Numan identifies a hook, appears to program it, and then lets it run. I enjoy the hypnotic effect, the mesmerizing atmospherics, the sheer dimensionality of the music, but there is much to be enjoyed in the diversity of musical influences that characterize the huge middle section of Numan's output, from Telekon to Machine and Soul. I would love to see Numan retreat a bit from the mechanized virtuosity where he currently resides, to a community-oriented, collaborative approach. There is no doubt in my mind that the multiple masterpieces that Numan has produced all have that professional cooperation and creation in common. I should add a clarification, because there is a large group of musicians involved in this epic production. Jagged, the title piece seems to let other voices, literally and figuratively, participate. As a result, I have upped my rating to five stars. It may be dark, but it sure is a masterpiece and holds up well under repeated listening.

With all due respect to marblehead, how the heck do you get to KISS from this album? I'm confused.

No, this album is not NiN, nor is it a return to Replicas. He already did Replicas, and I do not believe that he feels the need to recreate it for you. His music has always been a reflection on who he is and what he's going through at the time, almost like a magazine subscription of his life. Is the album good? Of course it is. It does have a consistent pervasive sound running through the whole thing, much like Exile, which may be too much for some people to deal with for over an hour. Not for me. The album's dark tone is more stylized than Pure, and is easier to absorb, as it does not have some of the achingly painful emotional moments that graced Pure after some very hard personal events in his life. He's in a happy mood these days, and the music reflects this too, even as it eschews dark themes and atmospheres.
And the lyrics are not horrible. He is not trying to write a narrative or a diary with them; they are more on the level of a puzzle game, as the lyrics from the songs sometimes overlap each other in different variations to approach the themes of the album from different positions.
Bottom line, although not as personal as Pure, this album still rocks, and focuses on the musical and lyrical atmosphere and mood. Give the album a few listens. It will grow on you.

The first I heard this album I thought it a little too new, and didn't fully like it like Rammstein's new album Rosenrot, but a couple of songs into it, and on better speakers I realized it a good album. A second listening, and it fully grew on me. This album to me shows Numan's ability to upstage any artist in the field of synthpop, industrial, and rock when it comes to producing a soundscape of complex sounds that you can all hear individually rather then everything being thrown in like some grunge of powerchords being hit off key.

The lyrics are always personal to what's going on. I can't stand the other reviews in here constently comparing Numan to Manson, NiN, etc. He's been writing like this before any of these bands had a thought of writing something dark and personal. Numan was doing this when Brian Warner was still in christian school, and when Reznor was still covering Billy Idol. Everyone closely related to his genre of music knows who Gary Numan is, and look up to him. Numan doesn't copy others. Others took what he did, and made it their own. When numan came back to rework things he did what he wanted to do...make things a bit darker. He took what people did, but mainly what he did in the past, reworked it to make it better. Exile was a start, and Hybrid and Pure were what we knew he was fully wanting, and to me Jagged was the perfection of this.

Jagged was beautifully written, engineered, and though tends to sound the same is done to create a dark etherial atmoshere to trap you fully into the world he's created. It's nothing knew as that is his style, and it's worked so well for 2 decades, and though the sounds have changed the attitude has not. Jagged is the perfection of Numan's new breed of work in an evolving genre of music he helped start, and he's still in it to show people he's still one of the best at it.

First new Gary Numan I've heard in 25 years or so. I still like the old stuff, but not nearly as much as this album. A totally different sound from then- I love the intense drums and bass lines. This is gorgeous, dark, muscular stuff. Just plain fun to listen to.

Numan's latest is not in the same NiN vein of 2000's Pure, here we find the live touring paying off with real drums guitars, not the tape-loop sample drum riffs of past, this is numan plugged into a big amp, with phat sounds, like lush black smoke billowing sonic darkness into the air. The fatter sounds and rock and roll builds on Crazier his last hit with Rico. The production, done by numan fan and techno DJ Ade Fenton, is top notch, you hear everything, the vocals, the effects, drums all separated out and clear. The album is everything Numan has perfected, the melodies, the vocals, along with the heavier guitar/drums is balanced, whereas Pure was more NiN-like, Jagged seems to be Numan taking everything he's learned and coming up with his own work. The music is like a film sountrack, haunting, and sonically thick and flows together. Recently Jagged entered at #3 on the BBC Indie charts. Its not Manson, its not Smashing Pumpkins, or NiN, Numan has come into his own on Jagged.

As a Numan fan since 1979 I have watched the highs and lows of his career.It is difficult to criticise sometimes because
creatively all artists go thru bad patches and you've got to accept that. This album sadly, for me, comes across as a disappointing extension of 'Pure'. There is not a lot new here, the opening track does not set the scene, in fact the first 3 tracks sound very similar. There are a couple of great tracks, 'In a dark place' stands out for me, but most of the album is, I hate to say, 'same old same old'. There is a distinct overuse of certain negative words (bleed,cry etc), which gets a bit depressing after a while. I expect an album to put you down then lift you up, then throw you of a cliff !! - I just felt down after listening to 'Jagged'. I expected something better than 'Pure', especially after a five year gap. Maybe 'Pure' is destined to be his standout album.

As a member of the camp that favors Numan's latest 3 albums for their more gothic/NIN-type sound, I found Jagged to be an amazing album, and one of Numan's best.

The rich landscapes are what will probably strike you first about this album; Numan draws you into a detailed electronic environment from the start of each beautiful track. His voice, which has always had an ethereal quality to it, lends a very haunting note to his songs, which frequently deal with the absence of a god. I found that he was at his best for songs like Pressure, Halo, In a Dark Place, Haunted, Scanner, and Jagged, but all of the songs on this album make for very enjoyable and deep listening.

The best way to describe this album would probably be as a mix between Enigma or Massive Attack's landscapes, and NIN's lyrics and overall style. (Think "In This Twilight" by NIN on Year Zero, or "Something I Can Never Have" on Pretty Hate Machine.) Even if this does sound strange, however, the overall effect is extremely enjoyable. I would highly recomment Jagged to anyone who enjoys listening to NIN or Gothic/Industrial/EBM music.
And yes...the only reason I wrote this review was so that I could give this album the five stars it definitely deserves. :)

I've thought his last three records were all superb, and this one is even better in my opinion. In fact, it's taken a place in my top 5 of his amazing catalog.

A gigantic, epic sound permeates every minute of Jagged, and the anthemic choruses speak both to today and his work in the early/mid-'80s, before the funk started taking over his dark edge.

So many high points here that it's hard to pick a favorite. Co-producer Ade Fenton has brought a thoroughly '06 sensibility to Gary's always-solid songwriting.

Well worth the wait. If I could give it ten stars, I would.

Nicely done, Gary.

Gary Numan reinvented himself in 1994 with the release of Sacrifice... by far his best release since the days of the Beggar's Banquet period. As good as that album was, the next one took all of the darkness and clever seques and cranked it up a notch with the next release, Exile. Then came Pure in 2000... his very best release ever, and perhaps, one of the very best albums of all time. Now, after 6 long years, comes Jagged. This new release is excellent on all counts, but one: there is no progression from its predessor, Pure. In a way, it's more of the same album, or what disc 2 would have sounded like if Pure were a double CD set.

I reviewed Pure and gave it 5 stars, so if this one sounds so much like it, why only 4 stars? As stated earlier, because it is more of the same. One would think that in 6 years, Mr. Webb would have progressed further, but didn't. Could it be that he is running out of fresh ideas, or was he feeling pressured to release something other than the countless "Best Of..." albums that seem to arrive in the record stores on a monthly basis?

Don't get me wrong here... I would heartily recommend this great album to anyone, both long-time Gary Numan fans and newcomers alike. The melodies are strong as are the lyrics. And as always, clever seques and "ear-worms" abound here. This is a magnificent album on all counts. But again, if you have Pure, you know exactly what to expect, and that it regard, it was a slight disappointment.