Gary Numan’s career is often divided into two convenient halves: the extraordinary run from Replicas through Telekon, when he helped define the sound of electronic pop, and the darker, industrial work that began with Sacrifice and eventually led to his 21st-century renaissance. In between sits a fascinating, frequently misunderstood period. Warriors (1983), Berserker (1984) and The Fury (1985) document Numan struggling to reinvent himself while the musical world he had helped create was rapidly changing.
Taken together, they form one of the most revealing sequences in his catalogue: ambitious, occasionally awkward, sometimes brilliant and far more adventurous than their reputations suggest.
Warriors (1983)
Released in September 1983, Warriors followed the remarkable Dance and I, Assassin, but found Numan moving further away from the stark electronic minimalism of his early records. He had written much of the material while living in Jersey and returned to England in 1983 to record it. For the first time, his record company pushed him towards using an outside producer, and Numan chose Bill Nelson, the former Be-Bop Deluxe guitarist whom he greatly admired.
It was an intriguing combination. Nelson contributed guitar and keyboards, while the sessions at Rock City Studios also involved Cedric Sharpley, Chris Payne, RRussell Bell, Joe Hubbard and saxophonist Dick Morrissey. Numan and Nelson were credited as producers, although the collaboration was reportedly difficult, with clashes over the direction and recording process.
The title track is unquestionably the album’s centrepiece. “Warriors” combines a muscular fretless-bass groove, sharp synthesizers, powerful drums and Nelson’s soaring guitar into something much more physical than the icy sound of The Pleasure Principle. It reached No. 20 as a single, demonstrating that Numan still possessed considerable commercial appeal even as his musical identity was changing.
“New Anger” and “Sister Surprise” are also essential, particularly for listeners interested in the direction Numan would pursue later in the decade. There is funk, jazz and rock here, with saxophone and prominent bass replacing some of the austere electronic architecture of the classic albums. The result can sound over-produced and slightly desperate in places, but that very awkwardness makes Warriors interesting.
Commercially, however, the album marked a clear decline from Numan’s peak. It was followed by his departure from Beggars Banquet and the creation of his own Numa label. In retrospect, Warriors is less a failure than a crossroads.
Berserker (1984)
If Warriors represents Numan attempting to adapt, Berserker represents him throwing himself into the future.
Released in November 1984 as the first album on Numa Records, it is probably the most distinctive of the three. Numan produced the album himself, working with engineer Pete Buhlmann at Rock City Sound Studios in Shepperton. The personnel included Cedric Sharpley, Chris Payne, RRussell Bell and John Webb, alongside extensive programming and backing vocals.
Most importantly, Numan began experimenting with the PPG Wave, an early digital synthesizer and sampling system. He later explained that the technology itself helped shape the album’s themes and music. Unlike Replicas, however, he did not build Berserker around a single tightly defined narrative.
The opening title track remains extraordinary: cold, metallic and propulsive, yet strangely melodic. “My Dying Machine” is arguably the emotional high point, turning anxiety into a pounding electronic drama, while “The God Film” and “Cold Warning” demonstrate how effectively Numan could combine aggressive rhythm with atmospheric keyboards.
There are undeniably period-specific touches — prominent slap/fretless bass, female backing vocals and the occasional rather glossy production choice — but they give the album its character. Berserker sounds unmistakably like 1984.
Its No. 45 UK chart position was a considerable disappointment for an artist who had once dominated the charts. Numan has subsequently acknowledged that the album was commercially unsuccessful, attributing part of the problem to the difficulties of running his new independent label and promoting the record. Yet history has been kinder.
Berserker now feels like an important transitional record: an early example of Numan using increasingly sophisticated digital technology to create a colder, more aggressive sound that anticipated aspects of his later industrial music.
The Fury (1985)
The Fury, released in September 1985, takes the experimentation of Berserker and pushes it towards something more polished, funky and theatrical. Recorded and mixed at Rock City, it was produced by Numan, Colin Thurston and the Wave Team, with an unusually large cast of musicians including Ian Ritchie and Dick Morrissey on saxophone, several bassists, guitarists and backing vocalists.
Its best tracks are superb. “Call Out the Dogs” opens the album with immediate confidence, while “Your Fascination” is perhaps the clearest demonstration of Numan’s attempt to reconcile electronic music with contemporary funk and pop. “Miracles” is an underrated gem, and “The Pleasure Skin” and “Creatures” are among the record’s most atmospheric pieces.
The problem is that The Fury sometimes sounds as though Numan is trying too hard to prove his versatility. The saxophones, backing vocals and funk rhythms can occasionally overwhelm the distinctive alien melancholy that had always made his best work so cothe creativity. Indeed, the qualities that made them difficult for some contemporary listeners — the aggression, digital experimentation, funk, industrial textures and obsession with technology — would eventually become central to the Numan aesthetic.
Today, the three records make considerably more sense as a sequence. They are not the forgotten debris between Numan’s golden ages. They are the laboratory in which the second version of Gary Numan was being built.mpelling. Nevertheless, there is a richness here that is often overlooked.
The album reached No. 24 in Britain — an improvement on Berserker, although still nowhere near his early-1980s heights.
Overall Warriors is the most uneven but also the most interesting historically: it captures Numan wrestling with rock, funk and his own image. Berserker is the boldest, using new technology to create a genuinely distinctive sonic world. The Fury is the most accessible and polished, even if its contemporary production occasionally dates it.
