release date: Sep. 20, 2010
format: cd
[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,08]
producer: OMD
label: Bright Antenna - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 2. "If You Want It" - 3. "History of Modern (Part I)" (live) - 4. "History of Modern (Part II)" - 9. "Sister Marie Says" (live)
11th studio album by OMD is the band's comeback album and its first studio album in 14 years as the direct follow-up to Universal from 1996.
The band's disbandment in 1996 lasted 10 years, and the reformation wasn't something that was anticipated, but an invitation from a German television programme and the fact that McCluskey's wife recently had filed for a divorce and moved back to California with their two children apparently made the necessary interruption that paved the way for a re-union. This was not just any project-version of the band but the original quartet and the most acclaimed constitution of the band featuring the two songwriters Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys backed by Malcolm Holmes and Martin Cooper.
Prior to the works on this album the band toured in 2007 performing the Architecture & Morality album live, and a new remastered version of the album was released.
History of Modern is pure synthpop with traces of dance pop that also characterised the album Universal from 1996, and I don't think it's just coincidental that these two albums released 14 years apart sound much the same 'cause many of the album's tracks have been written by McCluskey alone or with former co-writers several years ago, so it's really a bit of an "unclean" restart.
The album harvested luke-warm reviews, some praising OMD's return, others stating that it wasn't really a great comeback; but nonetheless the album went #28 on the national albums chart list. Two singles released from the album, "If You Want It" and "Sister Marie Says" didn't fare well as they only made it to #169 on the singles charts list.
Personally, I didn't embrace this album as a fine return. I think, its biggest fault is the sense of sounding aged like something pre-2000, or: a natural follow-up to the '96 album, which it really doesn't differ a great deal from.
Not really recommended.
[ allmusic.com 2,5 / 5, Mojo 3 / 5, Q Magazine 4 / 5 stars ]
