Sugar Tax (album)
| Sugar Tax | ||||
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| Studio album by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark | ||||
| Released | 7 May 1991 | |||
| Recorded | 1989–1990 at: The Pink Museum, Liverpool The Strongroom, London The Townhouse, London Amazon Studios, Liverpool |
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| Genre | Dance-pop, synthpop | |||
| Length | 51:17 | |||
| Label | Virgin | |||
| Producer |
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark Howard Gray Andy Richards |
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| Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Sugar Tax | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Colin Larkin | |
| Entertainment Weekly | (B) |
| Q | |
| St. Petersburg Times | (favourable) |
| Trouser Press | (unfavourable) |
Sugar Tax is the eighth album by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), released in 1991 on Virgin Records. It was the group's first studio album since 1986, and the first of three recorded without co-founder Paul Humphreys, who had departed in 1989. Featuring singer Andy McCluskey with a new backing band, it leans more towards the dance-pop genre that was prevalent in the early 1990s, than the experimental brand of synthpop which characterised OMD's earlier recordings.
The album charted at No. 3 in the UK Albums Chart and spawned two UK Top 10 hit singles: "Sailing on the Seven Seas" and "Pandora's Box". It had sold over three million copies by 2007.
Sugar Tax is the only album in the OMD catalogue not to feature the songwriting contribution of Paul Humphreys.
Richard Riccio described the record as being "sprinkled with gems" in his review for the St. Petersburg Times. He added: "Sugar Tax is classic OMD, and after a four-year absence marks a triumphant return for one of new wave's original invaders."Gina Arnold in Entertainment Weekly wrote: "OMD have never been afraid of combining naked emotion with their cold techno-mechanics, and it's this emotion — exhibited in lead singer Andy McClusky's [sic] sobbing, soaring vocals – that redeems their take on the otherwise fairly vacant dance-pop genre." A review in Q magazine called Sugar Tax "an unflappable album of quality songs which re-establishes OMD's credentials as masters of synthesized melancholia and dreamy pop songs."
Retrospectively, Ned Raggett in AllMusic described the album as "pleasant instead of memorable" and felt that it suffered due to the absence of McCluskey's former bandmates; Raggett did, however, have praise for "Sailing on the Seven Seas".Trouser Press found the record to be "simply ordinary and mediocre, a disappointment from a once-captivating band".
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