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Founding fathers of the New Romantics and pioneers of the 80s sound Visage, return with a new album ‘Hearts And Knives’.

‘Hearts & Knives’ is the title of the fourth Visage album. It is not only a paraphrased lyric from the lead single ‘Shameless Fashion’, but also a metaphor for the past 29 years of Steve Strange and Visage. Life is always mixture of trials, highs and lows. There are always people, situations and circumstances to cut you down (the knives), however the love, compassion and caring that has surrounded Steve Strange throughout his life is truly heartfelt.

The first song to be written for the album was co-written with long time collaborator and former Visage and Magazine keyboard player Dave Formula. ‘Diaries Of A Madman’ is a sneaky tongue and cheek vocal poke at Steve’s detractors. This and new songs crafted with Steve Barnacle and Robin Simon proved to be the catalytic creative spark to bring the album together. With a this core classic (and analogue) Visage sound in place the picture slowly started forming and the band reached out (once again) to Martin Rushent. He suggested the blueprint for the album and had began working on the first tracks before his untimely death in 2010. Undeterred, the Visage then reached out for further songwriting collaborations. Mick MacNeil, the creative musical core of Simple Minds, contributed to two songs the classic sounding ‘She’s Electric (Coming Around)’ and the radio-friendly ‘Dreamer I Know’ (which was also co-written with 80s super producer Youth). The Welsh connection was further extended when Visage co-wrote three songs with Rich Mowatt.

The sound of ‘Hearts & Knives’ is classic Visage, with the odd tip of the hat to modern production values. Most 80s groups reforming and making albums shy away from using the classic analogue hardware synthesizers. They remember how much work it was, and it’s all plug ins and software these days. Not Visage. All synthesizers on the album (aside from one bassline) are analogue. The production by John Bryan and analogue synthesizer collector Sare Havlicek is firmly rooted in the 80s.