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Ultravox! : Ultravox!

Released in 1977 Ultravox!'s debut seems to fortell the coming post-punk evolution by two or three years. There is a least one web rockist that claims post-punk is nothing more than the bastard child of art-rock and poncey brit punk. And you know maybe they are right? In a good way.

Ultravox! opens with the bluesy 'Satday Night in the City of the Dead', with wailing harp, solid bass and punked up vocals. It's a song about taking speed, which makes sense as it oozes with jittery energy . 'Life at Rainbow's End' is a more Art / Prog effort, with a delicious rythym line and significant flourishes. 'Slip Away' has the sort of bass line you would expect to hear in the early 80's, underlying a mournful pop melody, before shifting into a more prog-rock mood. No wonder Ultravox! confused reviewers and fans at the time.

'I want to be a Machine' almost has that prog feel at over seven minutes. Opening acoustically with drifting vocals, the song switches track two and a half minutes in with chunky guitars, interwoven with folksy raw fiddle for the chorus, before returning to the acoustic. Rinse repeat.

"Broadcast me, scrambled clean
Or free me from this flesh
Let the armchair cannibals take their fill
In every cell across wilderness"

The final minute brings strings and heavy drumming together to a rising crescendo. One of the two most powerful songs on the album.

'Wide boys' really introduces a tribal drum feel with distorted vocals. No wonder fans of Adam and the Ants liked these guys. Proto-Goth, certainly. 'Dangerous Rhythm' is a reggae influenced track, once again displaying Ultravox!'s range. 'The Lonely Hunter' is, it seems, a song about a fox. A fox with the funk. These folks just can't leave any genre alone, and it all works together well. 'The Wild and the Beautiful and the Damned' comes in with a powerful string lead guitar pairing, underlaid with a simple progressing bass line. A harsher version of [[tt:Steeleye Span]] perhaps, combined with a rockier chorus. A remarkable combination.

'My Sex' is the second killer song and last of the Album. Punched out clipped vocals combine with synth-pop synths before synthpop truly was.

"My sex
Is often solo
Sometimes it short circuits then
Sometimes it's a golden glow."

I can appreciate that.

So why care? Listening to early Ultravox! is like reading about the Internet before it happened. With there complex musical experimentation, one foot in art-rock, another in the emerging punk scene, and any spare limbs in just about any other genre you can find they are a foretaste of things to come.

Go listen. 4/5

Ultravox! : Ultravox!

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