CD: 480523 2
RELEASE DATE: 1984
LABEL: Sony

01. (Feels Like) Heaven
02. Heart & Mind
03. Panic
04. The Hanging Gardens
05. All Or Nothing
06. Hit The Mark
07. Ghost Of Love
08. Tales Of Tears
09. First Step
10. The Warped Wheel

This sadly underappreciated album has grown on each passing year, it's a gorgeous, haunting album full of lovely, shimmering melodies, delightfully lush arrangements, and wonderfully arch and dramatic vocals. It's not full of catchy singles that grab you at first listen; rather, gentle and wistful melodies that sneak up on you over time. Achingly beautiful songs like "All or Nothing, " "Ghost of Love, " the wonderfully uplifting "The First Step" and the haunting, romantic sweep of the title track, "The Warped Wheel" make this album a lost classic of its genre, head and shoulders above some of its better-known contemporaries that got more airplay and promotion. If you like Heaven 17, Roxy Music, ABC, Icehouse or OMD, give this disc a chance--and allow it some time to work its magic. The album's opening track, (Feels Like) Heaven, with its church bell synths and Kevin Patterson's brooding vocals, is an '80s new wave classic. Often mistaken for a love song, '(Feels Like) Heaven' is about the exhilaration following the disintegration of a painful, loveless relationship. The lyrics seethe with corrosive angst: 'Twist the bones until they snap/ I scream but no one knows.' Like Joy Division's 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', '(Feels Like) Heaven' deceptively buries its anguish beneath toe-tapping keyboards. However, one song cannot carry the weight of an entire LP; fortunately, Fiction Factory were talented enough to craft worthy successors. The light funk of 'Heart & Mind' is derivative yet catchy, recalling Heaven 17. Throw the Warped Wheel Out is a vastly underrated album, disappointing only record buyers who want every track to sound like '(Feels Like) Heaven'. A definite must for New Wave and 80's fans.