I spent a lot of time in Sheffield in the late 1970s, and was at the university there in 1980-81, just at the time of the Human League split. I hadn't taken to the electronica of the early Human League and their much less commercial comrades Cabaret Voltaire, as was fashionable, but was impressed with early H17 offerings, especially their debut single (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang.
They seemed far more a pop band with edge, using electronica, than an electronic band, and seem to catch the 1980s zeitgeist with more humour and imagination than their electronic colleagues.
This is their second, and most successful album, recently purchased cheap in an EBay buying spree.
Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry, one of their three top 20 singles opens up, and it's a decent listen, a well constructed mixture of industrial sound and electrobeat. Who'll Stop The Rain doesn't really make much impression, but the first single released from the album (didn't quite make the top 40) Let Me Go, is a slower song, with an appealing verse structure, but doesn't quite hold together as a whole, while Key To The World is listenable, with some great horns, but not much more.
But fear not, gentle reader, there's a treat coming, with the bands two biggest hits, both featuring the vocals of Karol Kenyon. Temptation is a real pop classic, sounding as fresh and exciting as it did forty years ago, and Come Live With Me still sounds good. Lady Ice and Mr Hex has a certain gentle appeal, and We Live So Fast, feels like a sped up electro-Scott Walker in parts. That's a good thing.
Final track on the album is Best Kept Secret, a 'grand epic' with orchestral arrangement. Sorry lads, not for me.
But this is an enjoyable album, with plenty of things to get a little bit excited about, even if not everything floats my particular boat.
3* - 1980s electropop probably isn't my thing, but these boys were probably the best exponents of it
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