By the time of Automatic VNV Nation had moved well beyond its more intensely dark start to find a way to create industrial dance music with both edge and intense uplifting feeling, what main man Ronan Harris earlier termed ‘futurepop.’ Automatic itself proved to be one of the strongest expressions of that aesthetic approach, ranging from the driving pound of “Control” and the vivid flow and punch of “Space and Time” to the concluding anthem to end all anthems “Radio,” a cry for connection.

– Ned Raggett