Felix NEill

Retrospectively traversing the career path of Soft Cell, it seems like the wildly successful mid-period pop triumphs were bookended by much darker material, although if the truth be told, they were always centered around an inner heart of darkness, even if it was sometimes cartoonishly obvious. Twisting back from the art school "Mutant Moments", through the lurid weirdness of "The Girl With The Patent Leather Face" as featured on the Some Bizarre album and then onwards, suddenly blazing a fascinating trail through the 80s pop firmament and almost single-handedly defining the synthesiser duo format that rapidly became such a cliché.

But then, post the initial chart-bound-sounds ultra successes, as the self destruction and the drugs kicked in; as the hangers on, well, hung on; as the magpie gleam tarnished and the barely submerged wilful perversity once again rose to the surface; as the slide downwards at the far end of the road started to gather speed, leading to the inevitable conclusion; well, that's when things got really interesting.

The musicianship was never a problem, as Ball seemed to emerge fully formed as the studio boffin of choice for all right thinking technoheads, but Almond suffered a barrage of thinly concealed homophobia disguised as criticism about his voice, his persona, his actions; HIM. It should be remembered that while Boy George was embraced as "one of Britain's stately homos", Almond was villified and hounded to an unbelievable degree. Not just by the tabloids, but by the music press as well.

And so the material got darker as the technology improved. The voice became "better" as the lyrics became a whirlpool of blackness, sinking down beneath the thudding drumboxes and Korg riffs. Jim Foetus appeared in the inner circle. There were mad fans. There were more drugs.

I've always thought the band should be given much more credit for recognising the potential of the 12' single and for utilising the format to the maximum extent, steeped as they were in the hedonistic disco clubs and the Northern soul sound emanating from the holy square demarcation boundaries of Manchester, Blackpool, Wigan and Leeds. Their stomping ground.

"Soul Inside" is a case in point. The seven inch edit nestles among a head-kicking extended eleven minute version which gives itself over to abandonment as soon as the needle hits the record. It's one of their most underrated songs, I think. The fact that they could still propel this stuff into the mainstream, released as it was as a preview from their final album, the wonderfully titled "This Last Night In Sodom" was a thing to be cherished then and now.

This lovely German edition on the spiral Vertigo label is enough to get the collector nerd in me especially excited. All artwork fully included, of course.



The B side features a couple of timely John Barry covers (quite by accident, as I ripped this last week). "You Only Live Twice" is a great version of a wonderful song, built around a classic Dave Ball arrangement. Also featured is their original, "Loving You, Hating Me", which in a nutshell, tells us everything we need to know about where Almond was at around this time.

I hope you're wearing something black.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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