Ultravox

In stillness, in sorrow

Returns that softly sighing lament

Grainy frames take us into the heart of a nuclear power plant, where scientists watch helplessly as the chain reaction that will trigger the imminent explosion unfolds, already flagged by the plant's monitors. After the alarm sounds, people flood into the streets, and in the crush some are trampled underfoot. But there's also someone who comes home from work just like any other day and, aware that catastrophe is imminent, decides to allow himself one last, heartbreaking dance with his beloved, before waiting for the apocalypse in the marital bed, drawing the sheet down over his own existence, as the explosion swallows everything in a blinding white flash, corroding even the home movies of memories of the life that was.

Dancing with tears in my eyes/ Weeping for the memory of a life gone by.

It's hard to imagine a better synthesis between wave-flavoured (nuclear) Cold War anxiety and the extreme romanticism of the Blitz generation. Two cornerstones of the whole Ultravox saga, going all the way back to the Foxx-era "Hiroshima Mon Amour", find here a more pop, but no less anguished, outlet. Because "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes" would go on to genuinely move legions of (video) listeners over the years, also sealing a terrifying prophecy of what would happen just two years later at Chernobyl. Right down to the details. The reactor core really did overheat during a routine test experiment (illustrated here by the band members yawning as they check documents) until the reactor exploded. Some plant engineers went home after the explosion (apparently unharmed) for the last time, before being transferred to a special hospital where they died a few weeks later from radiation exposure. And their families abandoned the city (Pripyat), leaving everything behind, just as we see in the video.

Singer Midge Ure revealed that the inspiration for the lyrics came from Nevil Shute's novel "On The Beach", which tells of a group of people in Australia awaiting the radiation fallout from a nuclear war in the northern hemisphere: "They knew it was the end, but they had time to think about how they wanted to choose their final moments, that's what the song is about".

After all, nuclear apocalypse remained a constant obsession throughout the entire wave era. Take, for example, the Stranglers grappling with their "Nuclear Device" (from the epic "The Raven") or Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, who named their most famous hit after the Boeing 29 that, piloted by Paul Tibbets and named after his mother, dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima. Synth-pop running high on nuclear radiation also came courtesy of Heaven 17 (the ironic "Let's All Make A Bomb") and Anne Clarke (the seductive "Poem For A Nuclear Romance"), while U2 dedicated a whole album to the "unforgettable fire" (specifically, to the photographic exhibition "The Unforgettable Fire" on the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs). But the Ultravox song carries that naive idealism that brings it closer to Adrian Borland's Sound and their moving "Missiles".

"Dancing With Tears In My Eyes" wasn't, however, the first single chosen by Ultravox from the album "Lament" (1984), a cornerstone of the wave/synth-pop era that turns 40 this year. It was, though, without doubt their biggest hit, climbing all the way to number three on the UK Singles Chart and reaching the Top 10 in several European countries. With its killer guitar riff, driving drumming and Ure's (more desperate than ever) vocals, it won over the hearts of the 80s just as the electronic fever of the early part of the decade was gradually shifting towards so-called "new pop". Also memorable was its live performance on the Wembley stage on 13 July 1985, during that Live Aid which Ure had helped organise together with his friend Bob Geldof.

There's no doubt, though, that the song was also propelled by its memorable video, which was anything but incidental for a band that had made the interplay between images and sound a cornerstone of its aesthetic, going back to the days of "Vienna", when it comes to the post-Foxx era (no, we're not interested here either in the debate over which of the band's two phases is preferable). The album was actually preceded, in 45rpm format, by another song, "One Small Day" – also later performed at Live Aid – released a couple of months earlier, on 3 February 1984. A rather unusual track for Ultravox, being mainly guitar-driven rather than synthesizer-driven, but still in keeping with their "hybrid" approach, already showcased amid the icy electro-rock pieces of "Quartet", produced under the guidance of sir George Martin. Boasting a good drive, if not quite a killer melody, "One Small Day" too was accompanied by a fine video, shot in Scotland among the ruins of Callanish, on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. A breathtaking setting that was later partly echoed on the album's cover as well. But the chill that seems to grip the band members in the images would also grip the public, who greeted it with a lukewarm No. 27 on the UK Singles Chart, disappointing the expectations of Ure and co., who would, however, get the chance to make amends with the release of the album and its follow-up single.

If "Quartet" could be regarded as a (good) transitional record, "Lament" manages to fully realise the ambitions of a high-risk sonic metamorphosis, marking the peak of this new season for the former post-punk androids turned new romantic converts. Having by now completely abandoned electronic instrumental pieces in favour of a refined song format, the Ultravox of "Lament" prove they can more than hold their own in this new sonic guise, more in line – it's 1984, after all – with the emerging new pop of the time, yet still light years away from the more stereotyped, glossy mainstream productions of the period. Amid their icy synthetic scores, the warmth of Celtic folk and ancient, timeless melodies seeps through, yet the horizon remains anguished, melancholic. A mirror of a humanity that is nostalgic and frightened, but still, deep down, alive, whose muted cry of despair ("Lament") still bears witness to the hope of redemption.

Bolstered by the experience gained working with legendary producers like Conny Plank and George Martin, Ultravox this time decided to produce themselves, working in their own studios: Ure's Musicfest in Chiswick and Currie's Hot Food in his basement in Notting Hill Gate. The "minimalist" approach was also meant to extend to the cover, originally conceived as completely black, but later enriched with an image of the Neolithic ruins of the Callanish Stones, on Lewis, in Scotland. And the same principle of "subtraction" was applied to the compiling of the tracklist too (later pointlessly padded out with remixes and bonus tracks on the 1999 and 2009 reissues). A happy instinct – at a time when such choices could still be made – that contributed to the album's success.

Compactness is indeed one of "Lament"'s strengths: eight tracks in all, for a total running time of just 37:29 minutes, none of them out of place. A sequence of songs that flows smoothly, cohesively, without a single dip in quality. Starting with an intriguing opener like "White China", which behind its hammering, almost "industrial" cadences, between Chris Cross's obsessive bass and Ure's jagged guitar, conceals fresh harmonies from Billy Currie's synth and, once again, an anguished lyric: this time the new paranoia belongs to the people of Hong Kong, awaiting the handover of power from the United Kingdom to the Chinese communist regime: “When white turns to red/ In the not too distant days/ Will force and misery/ Be the life you have to lead?”.

Not even the seemingly more relaxed "When The Time Comes" (have you ever tried reading the lyrics?) manages to dispel the blanket of melancholy that wraps around the record, which reaches its ultimate, sublimated form in the nearly 5 minutes of the title track, bearing the decisive signature of the late Cross. No guitars this time, just a backdrop of crepuscular synths cradling a lump-in-the-throat electronic ballad, with Ure pouring his heart out in a desperate litany all his own, punctuated by simple yet evocative keyboard phrases. Martin Gore and many other disciples of synthetic melancholy would take note. "Lament" is the apotheosis of Ultravox's all-consuming romanticism, sealed by another unforgettable video, shot amid the dreamlike scenery of the Isle of Skye, in Scotland (specifically at Elgol, Kilmarie and Broadford Hall), with the four lucky protagonists paired off with equally memorable girls (to the point that one of them would decide to stay on the island, perhaps forever). The line "In stillness, in sorrow/ Returns that softly sighing lament" could serve as the definitive epitaph for Ultravox, but also for an entire musical era inspired by that English brand of "quiet desperation" of Floydian memory ("Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way", "Time", 1974).

And so the listener of 1984, still shaken by "Lament", was about to flip the LP over to the other side, only to run into three more feats, lesser known but just as thrilling (as is often the case with Ultravox - see our "Anti-best of"). The track that opens side B is especially surprising, bringing something new to the table: Midge Ure isn't the only voice here - he's joined by the stunning female vocals (in Gaelic) of Mae McKenna, perfect with that evocative vibrato of hers, conjuring ancestral melodies suspended in time (the lyrics roughly translate as "Hand in Hand, taste the past, as I drink in this gift to me. Hand in Hand, taste the past, as I drink from it all"). "Man Of Two Worlds" is a prodigious surge on an electronic canvas, taking flight after the classically epic intro, the eruption of Cross's cadenced bass and the lashing guitar - more distorted than ever - of an Ure who sounds particularly at home in these misty landscapes bordering on celtic-folk. But the band is equally in fine form on the pastoral sketch of "Heart Of The Country", which lets all the love for those British moorland landscapes celebrated in the "Lament" video shine through, with beguiling keyboards in the background hypnotizing the listener through this dreamy, nostalgic ode, embellished by the inevitable instrumental solo where Currie's classical-sounding violin looms large.

As if everything heard so far weren't enough, the listener is dealt the final knockout blow by the closing farewell of "A Friend I Call Desire". Another highly emotional episode, unfolding over a masterful guitar riff carved into a stretch of the darkest synths, with Ure still in a state of grace at the microphone, backed once again by female vocals to give vent to all that sense of suffering and irremediable melancholy dripping from the record's grooves. It could be considered the true farewell of Ultravox, just as the whole album could. Ending here, in fact, would have been the perfect closing of the circle, the fulfilment of a coherent journey that, besides ferrying electronics into new wave, brought back into vogue a melodic symphonism with a romantic sweep, worthy of progressive institutions like Genesis and King Crimson, giving voice to the existential anguish of a generation that never recognized itself in the hollow idols of the Eighties.

But hindsight - as they say - is 20/20, and in 1986, even without a heavyweight like drummer Warren Cann, Ultravox thought they still had something to say with their "cursed album", "U-Vox", which attempted a clumsy turn towards folk-rock sounds - produced, on top of it, in a slick and obtuse fashion - and led them straight into a dead end. Midge Ure was already thinking about his solo career (his debut "If I Was" had come out a year earlier) and the others were by then adrift. Including good old Currie, holder of the rights to the band's name, who failed to salvage the ship with the two attempts "Revelation" (1993) and "Ingenuity" (1996), alongside little-known singers such as Tony Fenelle and Sam Blue, among others. Not even the nostalgic 2012 reunion of "Brilliant" managed to bring back the magic of that lost enchantment, with the band by then weighed down by the years and out of ideas, though they did try, at least live, to reignite the flame.

The passing of Chris Cross (25 March 2024) stirred up a wave of emotion and nostalgia for the golden days of Ultravox. Back when these incurable British romantics told of a restless, anguished humanity, trapped in the nostalgia of memories and its own paranoias (Fear in the western world, as they sang, after all, at the very start of their career). Arriving at the peak of a sonic metamorphosis, just as synth-pop itself was shedding its skin, "Lament" (No. 8 in the UK) was the perfect epitaph for that era. As sumptuous in its sound as it was desolate in its themes. And listening to it again today, 40 years on, has a strange effect. Because, deep down, nothing seems to have changed. With wars at the door and humanity still gripped by those same fears, ideally intoning its own softly sighing lament.

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24/02/2026