Hearts & Knives

2013 album from Steve Strange and his New Romantic friends, their first studio album in 29 years. Hearts & Knives 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. The sound of Hearts & Knives is classic Visage, with the odd tip of the hat to modern production values. Most '80 s 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 '80 s.