Well, the first track I have heard properly from the album
is called "A Prayer for the Unborn". It was the track that was on the
free CD that comes with Future Music magazine.
I have to say I was pretty much impressed with it as well.
When I first started to play it and the intro started, I thought "Oh dear,
here we go again." as it seems quite slow and boring and quite a lot like
the stuff that made up the majority of the last two albums from him. Then
he starts singing and the very first word makes it sound just like "Whisper
of Truth"! After that, it becomes a very sad song that obviously has a
lot of personal feelings in it, and in true old Numan style, he really
makes you sit down and listen to what he's saying. His voice is very soft
and takes you into the song in a way that few people these days can achieve.
You can almost see the situation he is singing about as the first four
"verses" continue. Great stuff, very touching.
Then there's a bit of an instrumental break for about
26 seconds before Gaz comes in again and gives you a right kick up the
backside!
The style of the song changes with Gary's vocals becoming much more aggressive
and some heavier synth and guitar playing chucked in for good measure.
This is the Gary Numan who has decided that he doesn't want to hide his
beliefs or non-beliefs any more and, just as on the last album, he rips
into someone with a vengeance.
In normal music I suppose you might describe this as the chorus, but Numan
doesn't normally follow that type of convention and again, it has an instrumental
break before going back into the same style but with different lyrics.
In some ways this song reminds me a lot of the "I, Assassin"
era. For example, the synth sounds are reminiscent of "Music For Chameloens",
and that can't be a bad thing. The way the song changes half way through
reminds me of "The Image Is". On the first few listens, I thought it sounded
like two unfinished songs stuck together, but I'm not sure that is the
case.
Anyway, even if it was, we all know this has worked well for Gary in the
past as that was how "Are 'Friends' Electric?" came about.
Altogether, I really like this track and it has certainly
made me look forward to the album a lot more than I was doing before I
heard it.