★★★★☆
40 years on from his breakout in Tubeway Army, New Wave pioneer turned industrial rock giant Gary Numan hits the stage at Edinburgh’s Assembly Rooms to showcase tracks from his latest album Savage (Songs From a Broken World).
Development and reinvention is crucial for any artist to stay viable in the modern age, which is why it’s impressive that Gary Numan still graces stages and album charts around the world. After introducing synthesizers into British pop music at the dawn of the 1980s, the pop world became saturated with electronic influence, some for better and some for worse. A new industrial influenced direction has suited Numan well and allowed him to keep exceeding expectations. This is clearly exemplified as many in the audience seem surprised when Numan arrives on stage to Savage opener ‘Ghost Nation': the Mad Max-esque desert outfits, buzzsaw guitars and pounding synths removing any notion that Numan thrives on 80’s nostalgia. The influence here seems to come more from industrial metal acts such as Nine Inch Nails, Ministry and Rammstein.
