Saturday, April 02, 2011

The Human League "Credo" - Album Review

By the time "Credo" arrives at my door the album has already invaded the British charts at nr. 29, which makes CREDO a hit album by any standard - but is it worth having?

The answer is a resounding YES!

"Sheffield's finest" Philip Oakey, Susan Sulley and Joanna Catherall aka THE HUMAN LEAGUE have indeed delivered a great piece of work worthy of the 21st century, contempary synthpop that isn't even trying to sound like back in the day when albums sold like mad.

While many critics never really moved on from their early, groundbreaking work like DARE, the new album is more than just a great album of fans of 80's synthpop.

In fact, there is very little 80's style music on CREDO. The two singles "Never Let Me Go" and "Night People" are the most commercial sounding tracks of the 11 tracks album and were cleverly placed as the opening numbers on the album.

The League surprises with unique sounding songs like "Sky" or "Privilege", while tracks like "Electric Shock" or "Breaking the chains" are disitinctively 21st century fun-pop.

Through it all Philip's trademark vocals are as strong as ever and the girls sound fab, too.

What I like about CREDO in particular is the fact that it sounds fresh without deliberately trying to block out the band's impressive past.

It is perhaps overall less commercial as some would have hoped but that was always the case with The Human League and I suspect that this is indeed the secret to their success.

All in all, the album deserves a top ten slot or even higher and the Sheffield threesome can teach new bands a thing or two with regards to building up songs and delivering great memories.

CREDO - a must have!

1 comment:

JAMIECHERRY said...

Credo was in UK Album charts at number 44
Lazy posting