Well, that’s a blast from the past! I have just spent the last ten minutes reacquainting myself with Peter Godwin’s much-overlooked 1982 single “Images of Heaven.” Why? Because Reduction in Force has just dropped their own version of the track. Whilst bands such as China Crisis, Black and Flock of Seagulls seem to have retained some level of recognition beyond their golden years, Godwin, who has still released singles into more recent times, seems to have been lost to time by all but those most ardent synth-pop stalwarts…dispite his single “Criminal Minds” being covered by David Bowie on his 10+ million selling album, Let’s Dance.
Reduction in Force’s fairly faithful take will remind people, as it did me, what a great song it is. If there are differences, it is that the new version is bigger, richer, lusher, its sonic spectrum broader…essentially the essence of the original only more so, rockier and more energetic, the perfect balance of reverence and adventure. Never nostalgic, but pointing to something so cool that may have slipped our memory.
Bass lines pulse, guitars are artful and effected, synths wash and wander, softening edges, filling in backdrops, painting the scene with additional colour and building soundscapes for the electro-beats to shimmer in and the guitar breaks to shoot through.
Reduction in Force’s new version of “Images in Heaven” does everything a great cover should. It doesn’t assume it can improve on the original; it just offers an alternative parallel life for it. It makes the most of technology that wasn’t available when the song was first conceived, but never gloats in the new sonic paintbox it has been afforded. Most importantly, it reminds us to look back once in a while and remember that while the future is always arriving, the past has a pretty neat soundtrack too.
