The Fury was released in 1985, just as Gary Numan's popularity was beginning to wane. Lack of radio play, and his perhaps naive hopes for his own record label, Numa, had ensured that he no could no longer guarantee chart successes. And so he released this, his hardest, most expensive studio album to date. The first two singles, 'Your Fascination' and 'Call Out The Dogs' are superb, and the two slower songs, 'I Still Remember' and 'God Only Knows' are sublime. The album as a whole has a detachment about it, an uncompromising air of electronic oppression, and is excellent because of this. But in 1985, synthesisers and metal rhythms were sliding out of fashion, and Gary Numan with them. Thankfully, Numan has remained true to his synthesised roots even to this day.

This is one of the few Gary Numan albums that I didn't much like on the first several listens. A few tracks caught me right off the bat - "Call Out the Dogs" is very catchy, and "God Only Knows" has a good atmosphere to it. Only recently did other songs here catch my ear. "Tricks" with its angry lyrics, "Miracles" with its melancholy feel. A few tracks still don't rate with me ("Pleasure Skin") but they aren't bad by any means. I foudn the extended remix bonus tracks to be quite redundant, but perhaps other folks won't.

Bersker, The Fury & Strange Charm were necessary bridges between the Numan/Machine music phase and what came later.

The only "Fury" tracks I don't cotton to are "This Disease," "Creatures" and "Tricks." The b-sides are superb, esp. "No Shelter." Put this album in the Numan continuum- it cannot be evaluated net of that coming before or after.

"Call Out the Dogs," "Miracles," "The Pleasure Skin," "God Only Knows" and "I Still Remember" are tours' de force.

I still have my red bow tie purchased for the occasion.