Soft Cell *Happiness Not Included cover
Soft Cell *Happiness Not Included cover

When is *Happiness Not Included going to be released?

The eagerly-awaited new album from Soft Cell, *Happiness Not Included, will be released on 25 February 2022 and will be Marc Almond and Dave Ball’s first LP of new material since 2002’s Cruelty Without Beauty.

“One play of *Happiness Not Included reveals all of the traits that fans first adored Soft Cell for,” states the press release, “that distinctive and striking balance between light and shade, hope and despair, the personal and the universal. Highlights include the yearning, airy pop of Purple Zone which contrasts its uplifting sonics with Almond’s darkly doomed lyrics, while Light Sleepers drifts with a daydream elegance that neatly matches its subject matter. Elsewhere, Bruises On My Illusions is bigger and more abrasive, its baroque-tinged synth energy elevated by theatrical vocal harmonies, while the pure grandeur of New Eden closes with the album on a suitably cinematic note.”

What songs will be on *Happiness Not Included?

The tracklisting is as follows:

  1. ‘Happy Happy Happy’
  2. ‘Polaroid’
  3. ‘Bruises On My Illusions’
  4. ‘Purple Zone’
  5. ‘Heart Like Chernobyl’
  6. ‘Light Sleepers’
  7. ‘*Happiness Not Included’
  8. ‘Nostalgia Machine’
  9. ‘Nighthawks’
  10. ‘I’m Not A Friend Of God’
  11. ‘Tranquiliser’
  12. ‘New Eden’

So far, we’ve had previews of Bruises On My Illusions and Heart Like Chernobyl, with Almond saying of the former: “Bruises on My Illusions is a mini film noir Soft Cell story about a disillusioned character with everything against him or her who still has hope for a better future, despite the odds. A darker Bedsitter. Dave’s ominous yet punchy defiant chords inspired the song.”

What do the band say about the new album?

“In this album I wanted to look at us as a society,” says Marc Almond, “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. 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.”

“Recorded remotely during a world pandemic,” adds Dave Ball, before describing the record as “science fiction stories for the 21st century.” 

Read more: Soft Cell interview