On Ultravox’s seventh album – the fourth of the Midge Ure era – the quartet continued pondering the question of how to avoid diminishing returns after the all-conquering Vienna.
Billy Currie had been listening to a lot of Michael Rother, and Ure had a brand-new studio where they could write to their heart’s content. Having worked with George Martin and Conny Plank, they figured they’d absorbed enough to self-produce, and Lament revels in their lavish yet controlled angst.
In fact, for what was then considered regular pop music, it’s fearlessly miserable, whether examining personal depression or the possibility of apocalypse.
Dancing With Tears In My Eyes, inspired by the Nevil Shute novel On The Beach, lends imminent nuclear radiation such a fantastic singalong chorus that it almost sounds like, er, a blast. Lament revisits the Vienna blueprint while feigning not to, and One Small Day is another example of the way they married cracking tunes with sinister yet succulent Eurocentric synthrock.
Four decades on, this reissue goes large with an eight-disc, 73-track box (with a booklet and a reproduction of that year’s tour programme), a five-LP set, or for relative minimalists, a two-LP release. The biggest package, beautifully put together with Peter Saville’s artwork, offers much gratifying bounty.
There’s a new Steven Wilson mix, and individual track remixes by Wilson (including a busy White China), Moby (whose take on the title cut is full of piquant, almost subliminal details), Ure and others.
Rarities include a previously unreleased 1984 live show, recorded at Hammersmith Odeon. It proves that despite their reputation as studio boffins, Ultravox were a rip-roaring live band, blending drama and locomotion.
Arguably, Lament brought down a curtain on an era, as Warren Cann left thereafter and subsequent albums were sketchy until 2012’s solid Brilliant. It stands, too, as a worthy testament to late bassist Chris Cross, a musician whose DNA tinted every important era of Ultravox.
Various 40th anniversary editions of Lament are on sale now via Chrysalis.
