In the early eighties New Romantic legends-to-be The Human League were just beginning to become bona fide pop stars, when three of their number left.
And while The Human League went on to become the thinking person’s Abba, Glenn Gregory, Ian Craig and Martin Ware formed Heaven 17, in many ways a similar set up with less make up fewer hits but more critical kudos and, arguably, greater musical ambition.
And here they come again with the re-release of their 1984 album How Men Are, a veritable A-Z of 80’s glam – synths simulating guitar stabs, Barry White violins, Doctor Who sound effects and drum machines like nail guns. Twenty years on it comes across a bit like midi-file soul, and yet somehow still manages to sound epic, swaggering, pretentious and funky.
Key to the Heaven 17 sound however, is actually the brooding, human centre to the songs supplied by Glenn Gregory’s deep vocals, a moody counterpoint to some tight, soulful female backing. And it’s undeniably inventive. ‘Five Minutes to Midnight’ for example, is spiky yet rhapsodic with the frantic, textured arrangements of a band trying to push the boundaries of a new genre with equal measures of naivety, charm and imagination.
If I had to some them up in a soundbite, I’d say they were a slightly more severe Duran Duran – there’s fun and funk but underpinned with a darker sound. Tracks like ‘Sunset Now’ for example, have verve and bounce in abandon, as if Stock Aitken and Waterman had done a Sisters of Mercy cover.
‘This Is Mine’ has some shiny brass which adds a touch of the Club Tropicanas to the proceedings and Counterforce 2 (one of the album’s four bonus tracks) sounds like an Art of Noise instrumental, pounding and mechanical yet threaded through with an ethereal theremin lead.
So what we have here is a glossy collection of plastic fantastic – preposterous, gorgeous, moody disco, and as much an engine to the New Romantic movement as their former group Human League were. Air kisses all round.