release date: Nov. 10, 1980
format: digital
[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,18]
producer: Visage & Midge Ure
label: Polydor Records - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 4. "Tar" - 5. "Fade to Grey" (4,5 / 5) - 8. "Moon Over Moscow"
Studio album debut by London-founded band Visage consisting of lead vocalist Steve Strange (aka Stephen Harrington), keyboardist Midge Ure (aka James Ure, former member of Thin Lizzy and Rick Kids, current member of Ultravox), guitarist John McGeoch (ex-member of Magazine), keyboardist (synthesizer) Dave Formula (aka David Tomlinson, ex-member of Magazine), violinist and keyboardist (synthesizer) Billy Currie (aka William Lee Currie, current member of Ultravox), and drummer Rusty Egan (ex-member of Rich Kids). Although being a sextet, the band is formed without a traditional bass player, and on the album ex-Magazine member Barry Adamson plays bass on three tracks (as the remaining songs are without traditional bass instrumentation).
Stylistically, it's closely related to the music by Ultravox in it's synthesizer-driven compositions, and on top of that it showcases a much bolder new romantic sensation and with that places the band alongside contemporary acts like Human League, Duran Duran, Altered Images and Japan.
I only came across the album because of the hit single "Fade to Grey" and that song is really the only great song on an album that hasn't aged well. At the time of its release, the music truly represented something else, as the punk rock era had done a few years before that by presenting music at the new frontier with technical sovereignty, though, I preferred the more chorus-based bands like Human League, Orchestral Manoevres in the Dark and bands with a stronger bond to the post-punk movement.
Visage is a very fine example of the new romantic era with its synthesised sound but I don't think, the album will survive very well on future chart lists, and the band only made one other - and a better attempt with a second album, The Anvil (1982) after which the band was continued with a new line-up and quite different music.
