UK synthpop duo Soft Cell is recording their first new album in about 20 years. Members Marc Almond and Dave Ball are in the studio with over 20 new tracks and are deciding on which ones will make the cut. 

The outfit is best known for their iconic cover of Gloria Jones’ “Tainted Love,” and put out four albums of passionate pop music between 1981-1984. They took a break after that, which lasted until their 2002 comeback album Cruelty Without Beauty 18 years later, after which they went on hiatus again until 2018.

At that time, they shared two new songs, “Northern Lights” and “Guilty (Cos I Say You Are).” The tracks saw the duo take on a more modern version of their ‘80s style. They also performed a 40th-anniversary show labeled “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” after one of their biggest songs, which they said at the time would be their last concert performance.

Now, they’re back in the studio with music that they feel “stands up with the very best of Soft Cell.” The band announced the news on Facebook, “So, as if by magic we have well over 20 brand new Marc and Dave songs, and today we sat together in the studio to try and work out which to include. No easy task. What we do know is that we have an album that stands up with the very best of Soft Cell and frankly, that’s all we care about. An album made throughout the impossible circumstances of the last year, but almost the better for it. Messrs Almond and Ball are in high spirits, can’t wait for you to hear it, and we are all super excited about what lies ahead…”

Almond has kept his solo career going much more steadily since he broke out from Ball in 1984. Albums like The Stars We Are (1988) and Enchanted (1999) proved him able to create his own style outside Soft Cell. His most recent album was a singer/songwriter effort called Chaos and a Dancing Star, which was released in January, 2020.