Search - Heaven 17 :: Luxury Gap

Polished pop

D. H. Richards | Silver Spring, MD USA | 07/15/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"On the Luxury Gap Heaven 17 made tremendous strides in production and arrangement from their first album. Honestly, a little bit of the soul of the band was lost in the process, but this record still sounds great. It has some of their best work, Let Me Go, which is probably their best known song in the US thanks to KROQ play. Temptation is their biggest UK hit and thanks to guest vocalist Carol Kenyon sounds nothing like the rest of the album. This album also has some of my favorite lesser known songs like Who Will Stop the Rain and The Best Kept Secret.
With this album the band moved firmly away from the technopop/synthpop that the Human League had embraced and into UK Soul/Funk/RnB. But in their own style. Have fun with it."

Not their best work...

Richard P. Mendell | Edmond, OK, USA | 06/01/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"...but adequate. Some songs (Lady Ice and Mr. Hex) are barely listenable in 2002, but they were catchy enough in their day. At core, if you were to buy only one Heaven 17 album, this wouldn't be it, you'd be better served by a greatest hits collection. On the other hand, there are a couple of good tracks (i.e. Temptation) that are among the best Brit-Funk of the 80s."

Not the same as original US release

killingj | Simi Valley, CA | 10/01/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The new versions of "Let's All Make A Bomb" and "Song With No Name" that were included in the original cassete release in the US in place of "Who'll Stop The Rain" made this a much better listen than it's current format. Just a heads up if you, like me, have memories of this version rather than the version that is released here.This CD contains some of the best dance synth-pop of the early 80's. In addition they write some very dramatic music here on tracks like "The Best Kept Secret". The sound is very rich and layered featuring horn sections, piano, guitar, string section, hand-claps and drum machine and some amazing synthesized melodies.Not much material taken from this CD that appears on "Higher and Higher" is of much note here aside from "The Best Kept Secret", but on the other hand just buy "Penthouse and Pavement", "The Luxury Gap" and "How Men Are" and you have all the music that "Higher and Higher" covers.The new versions of "Let's All Make A Bomb" and "Song With No Name" appear on "Endless" another best of collection covering their 3 first full-length releases.This 3-star rating is based not only on the quality of the material ~ which would be more accurately presented as 4-stars ~ but also on the alternate product available that encapsulates most of the works on this CD."