Crafted under the expert gaze of ex-Tangerine Dream-er Klaus Schulze, the third album from German trio Alphaville - who scored a fair-sized hit with Big in Japan in 1984 - is a highly polished cluster of glimmering technopop. Orchestrated by the dual keyboards of Bernhard Lloyd and Ricky Echolette, multi-octaved vocalist Marian Gold moves elegantly between booming, Blancmange-ish balladry (Romeos, Summer Rain and She Fades Away), dreamy, jazz-toned chiaroscuro on Heaven and Hell and Anyway, before losing his head completely and careering off on Ariana - a gloriously camp imitation of Virginia Plain period Roxy Music - and Middle Of The Riddle, a torrid tongue-twister with a teasingly surreal hook. Clever, without being soullessly clinical, the overall effect is accessible and often breathtaking.

- Graeme Kay (Q Magazine, July 1989)