Ultravox - Romanticism in the Age of the Synth

Avant-gardists and melodicists, projected into the future yet prisoners of a romantically nostalgic spleen, Ultravox embodied one of the pivotal experiences of the entire new wave. Their futuristic, decadent sound, born from the pioneering electronics of Brian Eno and Kraftwerk, absorbed the scent of glam rock (David Bowie, Roxy Music) and the restlessness of punk, paving the way for the synth-pop era and the "new romantic" movements, of which they nonetheless remained the unmatched pinnacle. At the end of a glorious - and always disgracefully underrated - twenty-year career, Ultravox can boast of having ferried electronics into new wave, of having revived a melodic, symphonic art-rock worthy of progressive institutions like Genesis and King Crimson, and of having given voice to the existential anguish of a generation that never recognized itself in the hollow idols of the Eighties.

The history of Ultravox can be split into two eras: the experimental-robotic phase marked by John Foxx's leadership (1974-1979), and the more melodic-romantic one that followed the arrival of Midge Ure at the helm. Both, for different reasons, are essential. Be wary, then, of anyone trotting out the new, nauseating cliché of the band's supposed commercial drift in its second phase, guilty only of having dipped its toes into the charts: these are the people who, when it comes to the Ultravox of the Eighties, will always cite you the same three hits, crassly ignoring everything that genuinely glittered behind the "fake gold" (to use Bertoncelli's latest, sorry definition). They're the same people who theorize about the commercial prostitution of post-"Autobahn" Kraftwerk, even disavowing their own theories about innovative capacity as the chief artistic merit (if the Dusseldorf band influenced multitudes of acts, it's precisely because of its "techno-pop" output). In short, the usual critical zealots, who prefer the quick fix of the commonplace to the patience of listening and reflection.

The John Foxx Era

The original nucleus of Ultravox came to life in Tiger Lily, the band formed in 1974 by Royal College of Art student John Foxx (vocals) and Steve Shears (guitar), who also recruited Canadian Warren Cann (drums) and Chris Cross (bass) through an ad in "Melody Maker". This line-up released the single "Ain't Misbehavin'", and then, in 1976, took the name Ultravox! (the exclamation mark would disappear in the Eighties), with the addition of Billy Currie (violin and synthesizer).

Signed to Island Records, the new band won acclaim with their first single, "Young Savage", and released their debut album, produced with the collaboration of Brian Eno and Steve Lillywhite.

My sex is a spark of electro flesh…

Skyscraper shadows on a carcrash overpass…

It wears no future faces, owns just random gender

(“My Sex”)

The extraordinary Ultravox! (1977) combines the robotic electronics of Kraftwerk with the violent attitude of punk, decadent melodies and vicious riffs. The effect is disorienting, in the finest tradition of the surreal, expressionist cabaret in vogue at the time. And it's impossible not to glimpse the lesson of the ever-mutating Bowie, who was about to make his Berlin-era masterpieces with that very same Eno. The scenario recalls "Cronache del dopobomba" (to borrow the imagery of Philip K. Dick): a mechanized, terrifying future that suppresses vitality and annihilates the individual. In other words, something very close to what, across the ocean, on different fronts of the same new wave, Pere Ubu and Devo were foreseeing. It's Cann who sets the project's coordinates, with an ambitious definition: "A twisted but uniform alchemy of Roy Orbison-style melodrama, Stones or Velvet rawness, and lyrics in the style of David Bowie/Marc Bolan". A goal pursued through maximum essentiality: "Songs of two and a half, three minutes, with a four-bar solo, eight at most".

But the songwriting is rich with ideas: it ranges from the oriental flavours of the single "Dangerous Rhythm" to the neurasthenic electronics of "I Want To Be A Machine", from the alienating spoken delivery of "My Sex" to the infectious anthem of "Wide Boys", all the way to the robotic dance of "Saturday Night In The City" and the grandiose melodicism of "The Wild The Beautiful And The Damned".

An imagery in which emerges the idea of a body-machine fusion with a distinctly Ballardian stamp, starting with that "My Sex", which sounds like a hymn to alienated sexuality: “My sex is a spark of electro flesh… Skyscraper shadows on a carcrash overpass… It wears no future faces, owns just random gender” ("My sex is a spark of electronic flesh... A neon silhouette over an overpopulated metropolis... Skyscraper shadows on a car-crash overpass... It wears no future faces, its gender is random").

Foxx is the icy dandy, the striking vocalist of this ensemble of androids, but behind the scenes the violin (as well as the synth) of Billy Currie is starting to make its presence felt, destined to become the true soul of the project. Unfortunately for them, at this point British music was heading down the road of punk, and the revolution of Steve Strange's New Romantics was still a long way off: the critics snubbed them, and it would take many years before the inevitable late reappraisal.

I'm very frustrated by the way we're forced to live at the moment. Being a whole person means accepting the darkest part of yourself, and it happens to be the part that interests me most.

(John Foxx)

The same year also saw the release of Ha! Ha! Ha!, which features the epic "Hiroshima Mon Amour" (inspired by the impossible love story of Resnais' 1959 film, one of the masterpieces of the Nouvelle Vague). The track, placed at the close of the album, is one of the first British productions to feature a drum machine (the Roland TR-77 with preset patterns), but its brilliance also lies in the disorienting sax part by C.C. (Gloria Mundi) and in Foxx's clinical yet incredibly poignant delivery. It remains one of the expressive peaks of Ultravox's first era.

The single pulled from the album, however, is "Rockwrok", a tribute to Marcel Duchamp and his magazine RongWrong (the final title was, apparently, a printing error). A kind of epileptic boogie with scorching guitars and particularly explicit lyrics: “Come on, let's tangle in the dark/ fuck like a dog, bite like a shark… the whole wide world fits hip to hip”. This sort of electropunk proves to be an increasingly hybrid, mutant creature, brushing against disco pulses on the menacing "Man Who Dies Every Day", which lays bare Foxx's bleak existentialism: "As a human being I'm very frustrated by the way we live, by the way we're forced to live at the moment," he says, "being a whole person means accepting the darkest part of yourself, and it happens to be the part that interests me most". J.G. Ballard is still lurking around the corner, but his futurist aesthetic fuses with a romantic, decadent vision, capable of painting glacial scenarios as on "The Frozen Ones", which probes one of the key themes of Foxx's poetics: the distorted relationship between communication, television in particular, and humanity: “Too many pictures on my screen/and they all are screaming at me/ Man I need this insulation/ The only way to stop the rush/ Whenever feelings gets too real/ is to cut the information”. L’angoscia per l’onnipresenza del medium televisivo torna anche su “Fear In The Western World”, where the discourse widens to the political and religious propaganda broadcast by TV screens in a West adrift: “Your picture of yourself it’s a media myth/ Someone told me Jesus was the Devil’s lover/ While we masturbate on a magazine’s cover/ Mother’s still on valium/ Daddy puts the news on tv/ Orphans laughs at the confusion/ Ireland screams/ Africa burns/ Suburbia stumbles/ I can feel the fear in the western world”.

In such an alienating context, humanity remains suspended in time in a state of semi-dementia, stupefied in the face of the changing seasons, as theorized by the splendid "Distant Smile", which opens on hazy ambient piano tones before erupting into an orgy of synths (“Sometimes I always seem to be/ adrift in other times/ with a distant smile”). All that's left, then, is an "Artificial Life": man's transformation into an automaton is complete, a mechanical creature chasing the myth of perfection, ending up crushed in the frantic gears of postmodern society, with all its illusory fetishes (“She turned to perfection once, but realised she’d only turned into pain/ She ran through Divine Light/ Chemicals/ Scientology/ Her own sex/ Before she turned away/ And it goes on all night/ The artificial life”). A parable declaimed over neurasthenic art-rock textures that recall Roxy Music's "In Every Dream Home A Heartache".

These are all songs of enormous influence, which would deeply inspire the work of Gary Numan, pioneer of synth-pop, as well as Foxx's own solo career.

We feel European. The undertone and the melodies we tend to produce seemed… Teutonic even before we got to Berlin.

(John Foxx)

In 1978 Shears was replaced by Robin Simon, and Systems Of Romance (1978) was released, the first work produced by Conny Plank, a guru of electronic rock ever since the legendary era of Can. The album fuses the band's art-punk vision with a clinical electronics, ever more removed from the human, and points Foxx toward the path he would follow once he left the group due to repeated clashes with Billy Currie. Foxx, in fact, wanted to venture down increasingly minimal paths, whereas Currie wanted to develop the music further and open up more to the new trends starting to take hold in England, such as the "New Romantic" phenomenon.

Overall, though, Systems Of Romance sounds like a good compromise between the two options, marrying sophisticated arrangements to a direct, essential approach, thanks to a bold instrumental interplay of violins, guitars, EMS, ARP and Roland TR-77, even if it's clear the electronic component is becoming predominant. The result is an album once again projected into the future, destined to leave a luminous trail across all the electronic pop of the years to come. The opening single "Slow Motion" is emblematic of this now-mature formula, uniting the impetuousness of the guitars with the frozen sound of the keyboards, over rhythms carved out by an implacable bass and robotic drumming. "Quiet Men", driven by synthetic bass and drum machine, is almost a manifesto of the Foxx persona, withdrawn into the shadow of his quiet private life, at a safe distance from the spotlight; but above all it's a formidable showcase of their electronic rock, hanging on the nervy lines of Simon's guitar and Currie's phantasmagoric synth, which produces a memorable solo. Also striking are the sinuous "Blue Light", the more driving "Some Of Them", and "Dislocation", which, with its drum machine and keyboard hiccups and its spectral choruses backing the desolate, aseptic vocals, proves to be, perhaps, the experimental peak of an album blessed with inspiration even in its seemingly minor episodes (the romantic "Maximum Acceleration" and "When You Walk Through Me") and sealed by the final farewell of "Just For A Moment", marked by a diaphanous, solemn electronic sound.

Ultravox! thus become the standard-bearers of an all-European new wave that shuns the clichés of American rock. Currie plays violin while rejecting blues scales, drawing instead on classical music. And Foxx taps into a decadent imagery in line with the avant-gardes of the Old Continent: "We feel European," the frontman himself tells NME. "The undertones and the melodies we tend to produce seemed... Teutonic even before we got to Berlin."

Systems Of Romance, however, fails to meet commercial expectations, and Island takes the opportunity to tear up its contract with Foxx and Simon, who will go on to pursue solo careers. The former, in particular, will reach the formal peak of his art with his debut, Metamatic (1980), built on increasingly minimalist, alienating sounds ("Underpass", "No One Driving"), and with the ambitious The Garden (1981), a "pastoral" hymn featuring two gems like "Europe After The Rain" and "Walk Away", which rediscover acoustic instruments, offering visions of mysterious, familiar worlds. The former Ultravox leader's career will go on for a long time yet, through ambient experiments, church-music forays and returns to the synthetic architectures of his early records, such as Interplay (2011), released under the name John Foxx And The Maths, which seals the sensational comeback of the Quiet Man of the 2000s, with a handful of formidable exercises in techno-writing, driven by the fantastic single "Destination".

But that's recent history. To pick up the thread of the Ultravox story, instead, we need to immerse ourselves in the alluring, nostalgic atmospheres of the New Romantic movement of the early '80s and its undisputed temple, London's Blitz club.

We were disillusioned with punk, so we thought we'd throw a night for all the glammier punks who didn't go out on weekends for fear of getting beaten up.

(Rusty Egan, on the New Romantic movement)

The Midge Ure Era

Orphaned by Foxx, Ultravox! are at a dead end. Billy Currie, temporarily unemployed, drowns his melancholy in the retro-glamorous nights of Billy's, a London club in Soho where DJ Rusty Egan, former drummer of the Rich Kids, professed his full-blown Bowie obsession at a weekly event called "A Club For Heroes". A band of incurable romantics, eccentrically dressed in flashy make-up, elaborate hairstyles, wigs and aristocratic outfits, forms around these dance nights, which mix the Thin White Duke with Kraftwerk, old-world cinematic suggestions with the nascent electro-pop sound. The congregation grows and takes root at the larger Blitz, a London venue where, alongside Egan, his flatmate Steve Strange also makes a name for himself: an eccentric Irish dandy with a past as a shop assistant at a military base's PX store. Together, Egan and Strange set the coordinates of the new New Romantic aesthetic: "We were both disillusioned with punk, so we thought we'd throw a night for all the glammier punks who didn't go out on weekends for fear of getting beaten up," Egan will explain.

Their musical creation is called Visage, an incredible supergroup that, alongside the two founders, also features the wondrous trio from Magazine — John McGeoch, Barry Adamson and David Formula — plus Billy Currie himself, along with a Scottish singer and guitarist named Midge Ure, a member of Slick and The Rich Kids (alongside Egan and former Sex Pistol Glen Matlock).

According to Strange's own definition, the name "Visage" was meant to indicate the group's "visual" attitude ("Vis") and the new era ("Age") of dance music. The exquisite fruit of so much grace is a fantastic atmospheric dance ballad in pure New Romantic style, with the captivating title "Fade To Grey". A veritable bomb, it will send the charts into meltdown, reaching No. 1 in 21 countries. "Fade To Grey" will be the driving single off Visage's self-titled debut album, followed by two more lackluster efforts ("The Anvil", "Beat Boy") amid constant line-up changes.

As if their brief trajectory weren't enough, Visage will always have a rightful place in rock history for giving Ultravox the chance at a second life. Currie, in fact, sees in Ure the perfect frontman for the band's rebirth and calls Cross and Cann back into service. The group, now simply called Ultravox (without the exclamation mark), signs with Chrysalis Records.

By 1979, punk is already on the wane. Blondie and the Cars have already unleashed disco-punk on the world, a danceable, polished variant of the "no future" ethos of Ramones, Clash and Sex Pistols. In Britain, the first synth-pop and dark-punk bands are starting to emerge. And a quieter, more melancholy mood begins to spread among the new generations, one destined to pervade the entire decade of the '80s. The orphans of the exclamation mark manage to capture the spirit of the decade, distilling it into a new musical formula. For Midge Ure, the new Ultravox are "a rock band that uses a synthesizer". Thus is born a sound that will make the balance between electronic experimentation and crepuscular melodicism its cornerstone. Sumptuous synthesizers, obsessive rhythms, violin virtuosity and tense guitar solos will be its main ingredients.

On a crowded beach

washed by the sun

He puts his headphones on

His modern world revolves around the synthesizer’s song

Full of future thoughts and thrills

his senses slip away

He is a European legacy

A culture for today

(“New Europeans”)

The first masterpiece of this new course is Vienna (1980), which takes Europe by storm thanks to the decadent allure of the title track, the first Ultravox song to crack the charts. It's a piece of symphonic pop, masterfully orchestrated by Currie, with Ure's vocals more melodramatic than ever: his cry of “This means nothing to me” isn't meant to express resigned indifference, but rather a lament for a lost past. The band's unexpected commercial success is also fuelled by the ultra-fast electropop of “All Stood Still”, the vigorous synth-pop of “Sleepwalk” (with Ure's vocals recalling Trevor Horn's on “Drama” by the Yes, with Cann's aggressive beat and Currie's delightful viola in the finale) and the more conventional refrain of “Passing Strangers”. On closer inspection, though, the album's true value lies elsewhere. Starting with the opening “Astradyne”, seven minutes of experimental electronics echoing the golden age of Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream, as well as “Mr X”, another exercise in this robotic sound that seems to come straight out of “The Man-Machine”: it's the story of a mysterious traveller narrated by Chris Cross in a glacial tone over a lush carpet of synths, with Currie's viola bursting in at the end.

The album's cultural manifesto, on the other hand, is “New Europeans”, with Ure's searing guitar accompanied by the obsessive pulse of the electronic drums and the keyboards' abstract flourishes, which give way in the finale to a magnificent piano passage. The Europe of Ultravox is a continent corroded by decadence, depicted through almost Hollywood-like glamour scenarios (in the style of “Julia”), yet capable of casting an uneasy eye on the future: “On a crowded beach/ washed by the sun/ He puts his headphones on/ His modern world revolves around the synthesizer’s song/ Full of future thoughts and thrills/ his senses slip away/ He is a European legacy/ A culture for today” (from “New Europeans”). Musically, Ure and co. carry out an operation that's the opposite of what Trevor Horn was pursuing in those years: rather than subverting the structures of the pop song, they turn them into an art form, through contamination with electronics (the keyboards) and classical music (the violin). Ultravox's launch into the alternative circuit was also helped by their wonderful videos, inspired by a dark expressionism and a decadent glam look in the style of Bowie and Roxy Music. In Italy, it was the ever-praiseworthy Carlo Massarini, with his (never missed enough) TV show “Mister Fantasy”, who introduced them to the public.

We are a rock band that uses the synthesizer.

(Midge Ure)

Rage In Eden (1981), the last album produced by Conny Plank, can boast only one hit, the Orwellian anthem “The Voice” (robust guitar-rock seasoned with refined electronic touches and relentless drumming), but it confirms Ultravox at the forefront of the era's electro-rock movement, alongside their fellow countrymen Japan. This is the album that gave us the masterpiece “I Remember (Death In The Afternoon)”, one of their typical decadent ballads, as heartrending as it is gripping: Cann's obsessive drumming follows the sinuous flow of Currie's keyboards, while Ure's taut guitar and metallic voice heighten the pathos, setting the stage for a piano passage of aching beauty.

The whole record is in fact a new futurist nightmare, as shown by a series of thoroughly experimental episodes (so much for the supposed commercial turn theorised by the usual clueless critics). The robotic “The Thin Wall” unfolds over a kind of spoken delivery by Ure, punctuated by the electronic pulses of the synths; the disorienting “Stranger Within” plays out entirely over a cryptic, sinister electronic weave; “Accent On Youth” is enriched by magnificent guitar embroidery that streaks through the thick blanket of keyboards; “Your Name (Has Slipped My Mind Again)” sounds even more apocalyptic, with Ure's deathly lament echoing into emptiness, accompanied only by a dark rumble and Currie's chilling keyboards, sketching a Day After-like scenario in which the equally funereal title track also fits, propelled by a mechanical beat and shrouded in gloom by otherworldly choirs. But the group's genius also comes through in the finer details, like the brief (and astonishing) instrumental interlude of “The Ascent”, where Billie Currie's keyboards and violin duel in a majestic, breathtaking Schulze-like crescendo.

It takes a good dose of dishonesty to brand an album of such complexity and value a “commercial turn”. But the critics of the time were too distracted to notice that Ultravox were not just another synth-pop act (as they were superficially labelled), but still an avant-garde band, hiding ambitious experimental intentions behind a few catchier hits.

Ultravox's music grows ever more romantic, though perhaps a little less intense, on the following Quartet (1982), produced by none other than his majesty George Martin, the Beatles' guru, and boasting another hit, the sweeping “Hymn”, a pessimistic parable on “power and glory”. The album almost entirely abandons the instrumental suites that had made the fortune of the early phase of the new Ure-led course, focusing instead on a highly refined kind of “electronic song”. This gives rise to other gems such as the melancholic “Visions In Blue”, with Currie's synth more aching than ever, the desperate “Mine For Life”, boasting one of Ure's finest guitar solos as he engages in a new, formidable tug-of-war with the keyboards, and the driving “When The Scream Subsides”, which skilfully blends rock energy and melodic flair, landing on an intoxicating, irresistible groove.

A certain mannerism risks undermining tracks like “Reap The Wild Wind” and “Serenade”, which nonetheless retain a rarefied elegance. The other single, “We Came To Dance”, is instead a lacklustre follow-up to the electro-glam of “Vienna”.

Overall, Quartet reveals a few limits in Ure and co.'s new formula, perhaps not yet ready to take a bolder step towards pop hooks and more immediate songs, which would instead blossom abundantly on the following studio album.

A year later came Monument: The Soundtrack, which collects eight live tracks plus the previously unreleased “Monument”, and above all shows how well Ure and co. could recreate the enchanted, aching atmosphere of their records in live performance.

It’s late and I’m with my love alone

We drink to forget the coming storm

We love to the sound of our favorite song

Over and over

Dancing with tears in my eyes

Living out a memory of a love that died

(“Dancing With Tears In My Eyes”)

Less refined and closer to pop-rock conventions, Lament (1984) is Ultravox's last great album, after which the band would lose their way, even attempting an unlikely acoustic “conversion”. The record bears slight traces of that contamination with Celtic folk which Midge Ure would try to pursue on the last album of this phase, U-Vox, and in his solo work. But it's still the band's romantic grandeur that shines brightest.

The melodramatic single "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes" hits on a memorable refrain, unfolding into a hugely evocative, nostalgic melody: contributing to its success was also a striking video, which depicts the final intimate moments of a couple before a nuclear explosion wipes everything away, burning even the film reel of memories. The second single, "One Small Day", marks one of the most rock moments of the Ure era, built on a simple, immediate refrain that goes straight for the target. Ultravox, however, never forget that they're also a band capable of striking at the heart, as confirmed by the album's two masterpieces: the title track "Lament", a poignant litany sung by Ure over a backdrop of twilight keyboards, and the moving "Man Of Two Worlds", a prodigious melodic surge over an electronic canvas, embellished by the gorgeous female vocals in Gaelic courtesy of Mae McKenna. And adding to the pathos is the closing "A Friend I Call Desire", which takes off on a masterful guitar riff over a sweep of synths, with Ure in a state of grace at the mic, backed by new female vocals.

Rounding out the rich lineup are "White China" and "Heart Of The Country", two pleasant exercises in electronic pop that add fresh colors to the band's catalogue. That same year, this body of work is summed up in The Collection, an anthology of singles from the post-Foxx era (1980-'84), which also includes the previously unreleased "Love's Great Adventures", in which Ure reveals all his self-deprecating humor in the guise of an improbable Camel Trophy-style adventurer.

But at the peak of their success, the band begins to fall apart. In 1986, drummer Warren Cann announces his intention to leave, following friction with Ure. The three remaining members hire Mark Brzezicki of Big Country to finish recording U-Vox. The album, however, falls well short of expectations, veering into a bland folk-rock with a vaguely Christian message, produced moreover in a slick, dull manner that drains all the pathos out of it entirely. A mess whose emblematic summary is the single "Same Old Story", which clumsily introduces horns around a structure that already falls apart on first listen.

The anti-militarist folk ode "All Fall Down", recorded together with the Chieftains, delivers perhaps the only real emotions, though it has little to do with the band's history and aesthetic, while the more conventional "Follow Your Heart" only deepens the longing for the past.

Ultravox have reached the end of the road, and the band breaks up a year later.

I left the band because I wasn't happy anymore, even though we were still quite popular. It was hard. I couldn't go out and reproduce the Ultravox sound, but had to figure out what I wanted to say based on my own feelings. It took me some time.

(Midge Ure)

The diaspora

"I left the band because I wasn't happy anymore, even though we were still quite popular – Ure would later recall – It was hard. I couldn't go out and reproduce the Ultravox sound, but had to figure out what I wanted to say based on my own feelings. It took me some time."

The Scottish guitarist and singer would go on to pursue a solo career, releasing a string of albums that were anything but exciting: The Gift (1985), launched by the cloying single "If I Was"; Answer To Nothing (1988), featuring Kate Bush and the religious ode "Dear God"; Breathe (1996), whose title track became a hit thanks to a TV commercial; and Move Me (2000), steeped in pompous, insubstantial pop, with the sole exception of "Monster".

Redeeming the fortunes of an otherwise decidedly disappointing extra-Ultravox career are at least a couple of episodes: the Walker-esque cover of "No Regrets" (1982) and the collaboration with Mick Karn of Japan on the evocative "After A Fashion" (1983).

Beyond his time with Ultravox, Ure's greatest achievement remains devising, together with Bob Geldof, the biggest musical event of the Eighties, Live Aid, preceded by the charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" (recorded by a supergroup featuring, among others, Paul McCartney, Sting, Bono Vox, Phil Collins, George Michael, Boy George, Eurythmics, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet).

In 1993 Currie takes back control of the group and Tony Fennell replaces Ure, but Revelation is a flop. Two years later Currie puts together a new line-up for Ingenuity, with Sam Blue on vocals and Vinny Burns on guitar, also carrying out a tour documented by the live album Future Picture (1995). But by now, all that's left of Ultravox is the name.

Currie would then turn to his first solo project, Transportation (1998), an entirely instrumental effort made in collaboration with Steve Howe, the former guitarist of Yes and Asia, followed by several other projects.

What proves most irritating, however, in the years that follow, is the dull, dismissive way a short-sighted critical establishment writes off the Ure era, never going beyond a crude survey of those four chart hits while ignoring (or rather: simply not knowing) everything else, indulging in a sarcastic shooting gallery in which "gems" stand out such as the supposed artistic collapse to the point of "ridicule" under the guidance of "little-mustached Ure", the aforementioned Bertoncelli definition of "fool's gold", and other embarrassing ramblings that go so far as to rave about "commercial drift" and "dance turns" — revealing, one of the two, either blatant bad faith or an unmatched capacity for imagination (just think how much it takes to turn tracks like "Astradyne", "Your Name" or "The Ascent" into dancefloor filler).

A (Not So) Brilliant Return

Just when the name Ultravox seemed destined to remain the preserve of the usual nostalgics of "real" new wave, locked in a wearisome feud with their "nu" imitators, suddenly Midge Ure and company regroup, even reforming the historic line-up of Vienna.

First came the reunion tour of 2009, then, in 2012, a new album produced by Stephen Lipson, previously right-hand man to Trevor Horn and thus co-responsible for the fortunes of Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Grace Jones and, even more so, Propaganda.

That Brilliant (2012) aims to please the palate of the most diehard fans is clear right from the start: "Live" is the classic Ure-style anthem, verse-bridge-chorus complete with "oh oh oh ohh" and chugging guitar backing, and it cuts a fine figure, so much so that one wonders whether it would have made a better single. Then comes "Flow", an electronic pop number that would delight the Killers, followed by the much-discussed title track "Brilliant", a kind of "Reap The Wild Wind" that, unlike that song, gives no hint of an album built around the likes of "Visions In Blue" and "Hymn". While "Change" passes by without leaving much of a mark, "Rise" brings into focus a robotic sound close to the Systems Of Romance era, in curious contact with Foxx's recent output, featuring one of those lethal little synth solos that only Currie can pull off, which on repeated listens turns out to be the best thing here, however much Midge tries - unsuccessfully - to undermine it with a forgettable falsetto on the chorus.

But the real problems arrive afterwards, when Ure's primadonna tendencies resurface, in a quartet of indigestible clunkers going by the names of "Remembering", "One", "Fall" and "Contact". Currie reappears on "Hello", not outstanding but still a decent life raft in the middle of the swamp mentioned above, and on "Lie", a sort of minor-key "Live" complete with an application form sent off to Muse right at the tail end (though the hint of that had already surfaced in the heartfelt guitar arpeggio of "Flow").

"Satellite" deserves separate mention, as the emblem of this conflicted conception: the drive is that of their best days, guitar and tom-heavy drums are right where they should be, the pathos is pitched just right, the much-promised violin soars solemnly overhead but then... here comes the chorus of "Storie di tutti i giorni", the evergreen hit by Riccardo Fogli, which is also the edge of the cliff for what remains the melodic synth-wave band par excellence.

An album that falls short of expectations, then, but one that at least gives those who missed them back in the day the chance to see Ultravox live, on a European tour that also stops in Italy.

Epic and decadent, elegant and unrepentantly romantic, Ultravox painted new wave in the abstract hues of electronics, managing to humanize it thanks to a formidable melodic gift and compositions as convoluted as they are moving. Together with David Sylvian's Japan, they reached the highest peaks of 1980s electronic rock.

Celebrating their history comes the reissue of the four albums from the Ure era (Vienna, Rage In Eden, Quartet and Lament), with remixes by Steven Wilson, and of the historic 1984 anthology, revived in the monumental four-CD box set The Collection – Deluxe Edition (2025), fully remastered and enriched with unreleased remixes by the Porcupine Tree leader himself, Porcupine Tree.

Contributions by Marco Bercella ("Brilliant")

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