Thanks to the big-beat futurism and Gary Numan-style DOR footwork of their debut album, Australia's Icehouse got a lot of lip for sounding like Cold Wave clones last year. This time around, the band–which has been reduced to singer-guitarist Iva Davies, a small battery of synthesizers and a drum computer – can expect a similar drubbing for the heavy Roxy Music overtones of Primitive Man. But the Roxy-like turns of "Street Café" and "Hey Little Girl," the occasional computerized mimickry of Andy Mackay's reeds and Davies' Ferry-style crooning shouldn't be held against him, because he actually manages to take Roxy's original glitter-art shriek and recent Euro-romantic glaze to some interesting, if not always successful, conclusions.

More an album of atmosphere and suggestion than flat-out, plug-in boogie, Primitive Man colors the tug of war between human emotions and sybernetic cool with the dirt-brown and stone-gray pastels of our cave origins–primal mystery meets the push-button future. Most of the time it works. With its martial computer-drum crack, voodoo electronics and Davies' ominous overdubbed vocal choir all swimming in a murky echo, "Great Southern Land" conjures up the dark, aboriginal magic lurking at the edge of contemporary Australian culture. The cathedrallike synth cascade in "Trojan Blue" adds another spooky wrinkle to Davies' shadow play, while the more combative "Uniform" rides a programmed Burundi beat that's paced by rubbery shots of Robert Fripp-ian guitar.

Primitive Man's near-fatal flaw is the gradual dulling quality of its electronic soundscape and funereal pacing over ten songs. But the dramatic air of Davies' arrangements and his occasional sharp pop hooks eventually suck you into his mist. It's not Roxy Music, but it's a little more than just the next best thing. (RS 381)

DAVID FRICKE