Crijevo, May 27, 2007
'Reproduction' is a confusing affair of wanting to be strictly synthetic while on the other hand it is desperately grabbing for pop-stardom where there isn't any to reach out for - years later it turned out The Human League (and their split-camp colleagues Heaven 17) finally signed their capitulation to Rock.
The group's debut album is far more avant garde than pop to be sure, still it is a shame 'Empire State Human', 'Blind Youth', or 'The Path of Least Resistance' never charted properly - the history has it The Human League failed massive expectation on their innovation behalf and as such 'Reproduction' is a flop, described by Philip Oakey himself as 'a disaster'.
The album opens with quiet but intimidating clock-like ticking noise, finally to burst out synths at full pace - 'Almost Medieval' is a promising start for an album like this, continuing in similar, even more frightening vein of 'Circus of Death', where lyrics expose us to our very dark imagination of a brutal horror-scene. 'The Word Before Last' sound like a nice, soothing sequel to this song, except ending in uncertainty againg leaving us to our own devices.
Above-mentioned 'Path', 'Blind Youth' and 'Empire' offer more dancefloor-frendly grooves. Impressively ahead of the time, sadly a commercial failure for all of the reasons there might have been - one of them supposedly blaming The Human League signing a major record deal betraying their punk-ethics resulting in fans' refusal to buy the record.
The lyrics are quite confusing but as far as I could (or could not) understand, most of them are fictious on usual social topics - alienation, self-destruction, egomania...
The album's flipside is submerging even further into obscurity - the opening introduction of 'Morale' betrays another intention of matters emotional; albeit this is a nice attempt, Phil's voice affects it with great deal of pathetic lamentation - the track slides into a cover of The Righteous Brothers' 'You've Lost That Loving Feeling' - probably one of the weirdest covers in the world of synth-pop; not that it did them any particular favours - the song itself is an interesting affair of juxtaposing sentimental and demented parts but when it switches to a regular tune it is simply going nowhere. Ironically, this was one of the group's most favourable tracks in this early period. 'Austerity/Girl One (Medley)' is again confusing in lyrics but musically it is given back the dignity on the group's true synthetic territory. Experimental as it avoids to be, the 'medley' offers one of the truest 'techno' templates for years to come. The closing number 'Zero as a Limit' continues in mood-music fashion, less pretentious - sounds like an ideal start of the day, on your way to work, except you shouldn't follow the lyrics for they are not as optimistic. Its ending nerve-wrecking speeding up noise/beat just adds to the flavour, effectively creepy.
4.2/5 (