Duty Now for the Future. Album by Devo

Devo is a very creative electro-punk band formed in Ohio (USA) and which made its breakthrough in the late 1970s and remained active with its founding members throughout the 1980s. They were famous for their innovative electronic sounds mixed with post/punk energy and satirical lyrics, strange outfits and even the quirky atmosphere of their music which influenced various musical artists in different genres, ranging from electro-pop to alternative rock and grunge. Here is a review of their album Duty Now for the Future released in 1979.

From the start, the intro Devo Corporate Anthem sets the tone with its ironical grandiloquence, inviting us to an unknown travel, and straight out the guitars of the song Cloackout rush in an incomprehensible escape under the injunctions of Mark Mothersbaugh’s voice, before they stop on a dim in a jazzy bass line that Frank Zappa would have not denied, then the song starts over again with fierce and ingenious solos.  On Timing X, the electronic sounds and foleys seem to evoke racing machines or an over -equipped device ready to explode. The same phenomenon is observed in Wiggly World, where the racing machine takes a pose and indulges in a surprisingly languished and provocative riff. On the song Blockhead, the jolly geniuses of Ohio suggest to express the coldness of electro by transposing it to guitars rhythm, and the result is a sound astonishingly close to Grunge, which makes us understand why Kurt Cobain was smart to cover songs from that unconventional band.

As for the tune Strange Pursuit, it sounds from the start as a soundtrack but taken from an offbeat film (everybody would have guessed).

Triumph of the will is based on Asiatic keyboards, in order to concoct a heroic electro-Samourai theme that one shouldn’t take seriously as the voice of the singer Mothersbaugh is virtuously hilarious, reminding us of Captain Beefheart, another American guru of satyr and parody.

Pink Pussycat, with its rockabilly sounds blended with spy movies tunes, reminds of the B 52-s’ style as well as the song Secret agent man, not to mention a drawling voice in Kurt Cobain’s way (still him^^) and a jubilatory refrain in The Ramones’ fashion.

On Smart Patrol, the rock sound thickens, always tied to electro, because time is short and we are nearing the end of the album, so the prophets of Ohio must warn us against an impending danger urging them to take from the band Dead Kennedys their bouncy anxious riffs, also present in the final song Red Eye, with its refrain poured in a magnificent alternative pop.

For all this, thanks misters of Devo to have accomplish this task in your time so that next generations will be warned against modern world without losing their sense of humour.

Duty now for the future is a mission accomplished at best and a pure masterpiece in the same vein of its predecessor entitled Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo (released in 1977).

Lyes Ferhani