ROCK’N’ROLL CONFIDENTIAL
SOFT CELL
The original UK synth duo discuss comebacks, anxiety and angst, and how notoriety lasts.
The purple gang: having waved goodbye, Soft Cell’s Marc Almond and Dave Ball say hello (again).
Andrew Whitton
EMERGING FROM Leeds Poly and the same northern garage-electronics scene that gave us The Human League and Cabaret Voltaire, Soft Cell – AKA Marc Almond (voice) and Dave Ball (sounds) – combined sleaze, glamour and emotion on an early-’80s spree of gleaming hits. Worldwide fame was theirs with 1981’s Tainted Love, but they were too inflammable to last, and split in 1984 after four albums. While Ball continues to work with The Grid and beyond, and Almond’s solo LP tally is 25 and rising, the two have now reunited for new Soft Cell album Happiness Not Included, where sparse machine melodies and an undiminished voice in the spotlight communicate despair, tenderness and maturity. “Soft Cell has always been a bit of an electronic rock and roll band, really,” says Marc.