Gary Numan

Intruder

BMG Comeback kid addresses apocalypse.

Numan’s eighteenth album envisions an Earth so hacked off at humans’ apathy regarding climate change that it casts them as a virus and decides to get rid. It’s almost as if the revitalised synth-rock demi-god, whose 2017 release Savage was his first top three album in 40 years, is a prophet or something.

This ominous set of industrial ire and theatrical brooding sees him in his element, prioritising atmosphere over tunes, both coldly alien and vulnerably human. If he was once sci-fi, he’s now documentary.

Deliberate murkiness and deadened drum sounds veil for a while its passion. Yet Numan has always – at least either side of his wilderness years – fermented more emotion than his caricature. Intruder, with the title track as creepy as Peter Gabriel’s homonymous song, is most gripping when it paces itself, shifting between spells of repressed angst and heavy NINflavoured assaults. We’re all doomed, but Numan’s confidence is restored. ■■■■■■■■■■