Like him or not, you can't dispute Gary Numan's impact on music.

Back in the late '70s, the clinical keyboards, robotic rhythms and paranoid alienation of his hits like Are 'Friends' Electric? and Cars set the stage for the Trent Reznors and co. of today.

How discouraging it is, then, to hear the 42-year-old Numan playing copycat on his latest studio CD Pure, whispering like Marilyn Manson and yelping like Reznor about pain, isolation and sacrifice while perched atop a spiky bed of spooky synthesizers and abrasive, post-industrial grind-grooves.

Numan admits these brooding electro-goth pouts and tantrums were inspired and influenced by U.S. electro-metal. He gets one point for honesty, but none for originality or even timeliness -- Rip, Torn and Fallen sound like the cliche dreck Trentoids were churning out en masse in '96. It didn't work then, and it doesn't work now. Especially for a guy like Numan who can do so much better.

Track Listing 1. Pure
2. Walking With Shadows
3. Rip
4. One Perfect Lie
5. My Jesus
6. Fallen
7. Listen To My Voice
8. A Prayer For The Unborn
9. Torn
10. Little Invitro
11. I Can't Breathe