One has to give credit to an '80s new wave musician who can adapt and create contemporary-sounding music. There are icons from that era who continue to release new recordings --
Depeche Mode and
the Cure, for example -- but don't evolve musically; the sound is unchanging as if they were still back in the decade. This is not a bad thing, however; core listeners are usually who buy these artists' newly released albums and they don't generate new fans. That said, hats off to '80s Brit popster
Gary Numan, best known for the hit "Cars," who offers up a modernized industrial-goth set in
Pure. The album can comfortably sit alongside
Marilyn Manson and
Nine Inch Nails on store shelves.
Pure doesn't drive like the industrialized adrenaline rush that is, say, Orgy, but the tracks' lingering and creepy pace leaves behind a different kind of impact -- it's more haunting than relentless.