Production and Style
Co-produced by Conny Plank and Dave Hutchins, Systems of Romance featured the band's heaviest use of electronics to date. More New Wave orientated than the glam- and punk-influenced tunes that characterised their first two albums, Ultravox! and Ha!-Ha!-Ha!, its style was partly inspired by German band Kraftwerk, whose first four albums were produced by Plank. Among Ultravox's own repertoire, antecedents included Billy Currie's distinctive synthesizer work on "The Man Who Dies Every Day" and the romantic balladry of "Hiroshima Mon Amour", both from Ha!-Ha!-Ha!.
The opening song, "Slow Motion", was indicative of the band's direction on the new album. Though based around conventional rock guitar, bass and percussion instrumentation, it featured a number of rich synthesizer parts throughout the piece rather than simply a discreet solo or special effect. For drummer Warren Cann, "it perfectly represented our amalgamation of rock and synthesizer, many of the ideas and aspirations we had for our music gelled in that song".
The subject matter of "Quiet Men" grew out of an alternate persona developed by John Foxx, 'The Quiet Man', who embodied detachment and observation. Musically, like the earlier "Hiroshima Mon Amour", the track dispensed with conventional drums in favour of a Roland TR-77 rhythm box. "Dislocation" and "Just for a Moment" eschewed all acoustic and synthetic drums, relying on treated ARP Odyssey sounds for their percussive effects. The former song was imbued with a heavy proto-industrial flavour; the latter featured church-like vocal and keyboard effects that would be echoed on Foxx's second solo album, The Garden. "When You Walk Through Me" displayed psychedelic touches that Foxx also developed in his solo career; Cann later admitted to lifting its beat from The Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows". "Some of Them" was one of the few tracks that harked back to the band's previous hard rock sound.
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