Gillan — Futureshock (1981)
(Outer Order Tape-Bleed Edition)
There are albums that feel like prophecy and there are albums that feel like prophecy screamed through a broken PA in a condemned pub, and Futureshock is very much the latter. This is Ian Gillan at his most unhinged—post-Purple, pre-chaos, caught in that electric purgatory where British hard rock was mutating into something faster, stranger, and more neon around the edges.
Most people know Gillan as the banshee from Machine Head or the guy who did a brief tour through Sabbath like a meteor with a bad sense of direction. But Futureshock? That’s the secret handshake.
That’s the record where he becomes a late-night radio preacher with a cosmic head cold, ranting toward a future that already looks like ours:
burnt-out cities, shattered industry, glittering pop trash, spiritual static.
Why this album hits the Stormbrain signal so hard
Because it’s unreasonable, and unreasonable art ages better than reasonable art.
It’s glam without glitter, metal without meanness, prog without the smugness.
The band (Gillan the band — the most under-credited hard-rock unit in the UK at the time) plays like a pack of feral scholars: part pub-rock, part Mars-bound caravan. Colin Towns is the secret weapon — his synths buzz like factory ghosts mourning unemployment, and his keys stab through these songs like neon daggers.
Highlights from the drainpipe
“Futureshock” — A future-punk sermon delivered by a man who sounds like he saw 2025 and didn’t approve.
“New Orleans” — The most Gillan-ass Gillan moment ever: swagger, charm, a wink that could dismantle brickwork.
“Mutually Assured Destruction (M.A.D.)” — Nuclear paranoia as carnival metal. Dead serious and unserious at the same time —A specialty.
“Born to Kill” — The one where the band becomes a runaway hovercraft.
This album is like walking down an alley behind a nightclub in 1981, hearing three different bands bleeding out of three different cracked doors, and realizing somehow they’re all Gillan.
Buzz Drainpipe’s final word
Futureshock isn’t nostalgia.
It’s a weather report for weirdos.
A reminder that the future never arrives clean — it arrives sweaty, loud, unhinged, and dancing.
Exactly the kind of energy Stormbrain Sundays need.
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