Soft Cell are back! Yes, the British synth-pop duo played what was supposed to be their final show back in 2018, but today Marc Almond and David Ball announced they have a new album on the way.
The forthcoming studio set is titled *Happiness Not Included and will make up the band’s first release of new material in nearly 20 years, since 2002’s Cruelty Without Beauty.
“In this album I wanted to look at us as a society: a place where we have chosen to put profits before people, money before morality and decency, food before the rights of animals, fanaticism before fairness and our own trivial comforts before the unspeakable agonies of others,” Almond dished on the LP’s themes in a release. “But in the album there is also a belief that there is a utopia if we can peel back the layers and understand what really matters.”
Ball added that the album, which was recorded remotely amid the coronavirus pandemic, will include “science fiction for the 21st century.” Via Instagram, the band revealed the LP’s cover art, sharing that *Happiness Not Included is slated to drop February 25th, 2022 via BMG Records with the unnamed lead single arriving sometime this fall. Pre-sales have already begun on the duo’s official webstore, where fans can pre-order the studio effort in a variety of formats.
To support the release, Soft Cell is once again hitting the road for a brief round of UK tour dates. The run of just five dates, which kicks off this November and ends with back-to-back nights at the Hammersmith Apollo in London, will also mark the 40th anniversary of their 1981 debut album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret. Check out the LP’s cover art, tracklist and accompanying tour dates below.
The duo previously teased the album back in April in an interview with U.K. newspaper The Daily Star, with Ball describing the new songs as “quite minimal, melodic and bass-driven.”
*Happiness Not Included Artwork:
*Happiness Not Included Tracklist:
01. Happy Happy Happy
02. Polaroid
03. Bruises on My Illusions
04. Purple Zone
05. Heart Like Chernobyl
06. Light Sleepers
07. *Happiness Not Included
08. Nostalgia Machine
09. Nighthawks
10. I’m Not a Friend of God
11. Tranquiliser
12. New Eden
Soft Cell 2021 U.K. Tour Dates:
11/10 – Glasgow, U.K. @ O2 Academy
11/12 – Manchester, U.K. @ O2 Apollo
11/13 – Leeds, U.K. @ O2 Academy
11/15 – London, U.K. @ Hammersmith Apollo
11/16 – London, U.K. @ Hammersmith Apollo
