Ultravox - Vienna (Great New Wave 1984)

With the departure of vocalist John Foxx and guitarist Robin Simon behind them, Vienna kicked off Ultravox's second phase with former Rich Kids vocalist Midge Ure at the helm. Trading Foxx's glam rock stance for Ure's aristocratic delivery, Vienna recasts the band as a melodramatic synth pop chamber ensemble with most of the group doubling on traditional string quartet instruments and the synthesizers often serving to emulate an orchestra. It was a bold move that took awhile to pay off (the first two singles, "Sleepwalk" and "Passing Strangers," went unnoticed), but when the monolithic title track was released, the Ure lineup became the band's most identifiable one almost overnight. The simple and instantly recognizable drumbeat of "Vienna" proved infectious, taking the single to the top of the charts in the U.K. and making an impression in a new wave-apprehensive America. Drummer Warren Cann's monotone narration on "Mr X" and the frantic ride that is "Western Promise" give the album just enough diversity and showcase the rest of the group on an Ure-heavy album. There are plenty of pretentious and pompous moments at which Foxx-era purists cringe, but taken as a snooty rebellion against the guitar-heavy climate of the late '70s, they're ignorable. Returning producer Conny Plank's style adapted well to the new group, pitting the stark and the lush against one another. Add Anton Corbijn's photography and Peter Saville's smart cover design and all the ingredients for an early-'80s classic are there. A few albums later, it would all seem like a fluke, but on Vienna, all the pieces come together.

AMG Review by David Jeffries

Ultravox - Rage in Eden (New Wave 1981)

Following on from the success of Vienna, Ultravox cemented their position as a New Romantic phenomenon with their follow-up, 1981's Rage in Eden. The martial beats and political undertones of "The Thin Wall" single acted as a potent taster for the album, to be joined in the U.K. Top 20 by the even more powerful message of "The Voice." The latter song opened the album, but nothing that followed equaled its strength, its sequencing a flaw in an otherwise excellent set. That said, propulsive numbers like "We Stand Alone" and "I Remember (Death in the Afternoon)," the rebellious angst of "Accent on Youth," the exotic strains of "Stranger Within," and the haunting "Your Name Has Slipped My Mind Again" all contained their own power. And even if the instrumental "The Ascent" harkened back to "Vienna," it was obvious that with Eden, Ultravox was climbing to grand new heights.

AMG Review by Dave Thompson

Ultravox - Quartet (New Wave 1982)

With the successes of Vienna and its follow-up, Rage in Eden, Ultravox's position in the music scene was unassailable, further fortified by frontman Midge Ure's foray into solo-dom with the summer 1982 hit cover of the Walker Brothers' "No Regrets." The band's "Reap the Wild Wind" followed it up the U.K. chart that fall, a taster for the band's sixth album. And what a portentous taste it was. While "Wind" buffeted and whooshed once again around nostalgia for a past never lived, "Hymn" (its melody lifted from "Mourning Star" by Ure's last band, the Zones) wrestled with faith in a faithless age and prayed its way up the chart later that fall, while the dirge "Visions in Blue" saw the spring caught in its icy grip. But it was the fourth song spun off the album, "We Came to Dance," that best defined the overall themes of the set. Having helped create a movement renowned for its fashion victims and superficiality, Ultravox recoiled from the Frankenstein they'd birthed. "The Song (We Go)" may have been a cry of welcome, but both "Dance" and "Serenade" make clear the music scene's terrifying capacity to unleash both Dionysian abandon and militaristic conformity. "When the Scream Subsides" further fuels the album's existential angst, which reaches its emotional nadir on the suicidal "Cut and Run." With their toe-tapping rhythms, billowing synths, and rousing melodies, one is often tempted to ignore the darkness of Ultravox's themes, but with Quartet, the band deliberately made that nigh on impossible.

AMG Review by Dave Thompson