Visage

Pioneers of the New Romantic movement, the synth pop outfit Visage first took shape in 1978 amid the London nightlife hub known as Blitz, a neo-glam venue that stood apart from the era’s dominant punk ethos. At the forefront of the club’s stylish regulars stood Steve Strange, previously of the punk outfit the Moors Murderers, alongside DJ Rusty Egan, once the drummer for the Rich Kids. Eager to lay down tracks suited to the venue’s staple rotation of David Bowie, Kraftwerk, and Roxy Music, Strange and Egan received studio access from fellow Rich Kids alumnus and guitarist Midge Ure. Late that year the three cut a demo whose standout track became Visage’s inaugural single, a forward-looking rendition of Zager & Evans’ “In the Year 2525.”

They then brought in Ultravox keyboardist Billy Currie together with three Magazine personnel—bassist Barry Adamson, guitarist John McGeoch, and keyboardist Dave Formula—before securing a deal with Radar Records. The label issued “Tar” in September 1979 and, a year later, the self-titled debut album whose lead single “Fade to Grey” quickly became a club staple and signaled synth pop’s approaching mainstream ascent. Follow-up “Mind of a Toy” reached the Top 20, yet after 1982’s The Anvil the lineup began to fracture: Ure departed to concentrate on Ultravox, after which Currie and Formula also left. Beat Boy, released in 1984, marked the original group’s last studio effort, although a remixed “Fade to Grey” returned to the U.K. Top 40 in the early 1990s.

Following several aborted attempts, Strange revived the project in the 2000s. After a series of television spots and a fresh recording of “Fade to Grey,” new music surfaced in 2007 via the charity single “Diary of a Madman.” Early in 2013 Strange unveiled a third version of the band, now comprising himself, Steve Barnacle, Lauren Duvall, and former Ultravox and Magazine guitarist Robin Simon. Later that year the lineup delivered its fourth studio album, Hearts and Knives, arriving twenty-nine years after Beat Boy. The live set Orchestral, featuring orchestral reworkings of earlier material with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, appeared at the close of the next year. On 12 February 2015 Strange suffered a fatal heart attack in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. The final studio album, Demons to Diamonds—partly tracked prior to his death—came out at the end of 2015, with the companion release Darkness to Diamond following in early 2016.