OMD
DAZZLE SHIPS
UMC/EMI
★★★★
Despite Radio Prague’s opening fanfare, OMD’s fourth album didn’t provoke much celebration. Less than 18 months after the platinum-selling Architecture & Morality, hopes were high to replicate such success, but Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphries had other ideas. Initially, in fact, they had none. So, hamstrung by writer’s block, they turned to musique concrète’s techniques, turning in a less than commercial and the Cold War. The results, to no doubt everyone involved’s distress, achieved a tenth of its predecessor’s sales.