Soft Cell Announce New Studio Album ‘Happiness Not Included’ For Early 2022 Release, Drop New Song ‘Heart Like Chernobyl’

Nothing like building a bit of hype up nice and early, as veteran British synthpop icons Soft Cell announce new studio album Happiness Not Included for release in February next year. The album marks their first studio set since 2002’s Cruelty Without Beauty which featured a flawless cover of Northern Soul anthem The Night.

With striking artwork capturing Chernobyl, titles such as Bruises On My Illusions and Heart Like Chernobyl capturing the tone of the brooding synthpop anthems that Marc Almond and Dave Ball are about to release. March shares: “In this album I wanted to look at us as a society: 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.“

Dave adds: “[The album was] Recorded remotely during a world pandemic. Science fiction stories for the 21st century.”

The duo have also given us a taste of the synth-soaked lead single Heart Like Chernobyl.

Happiness Not Included is set to be released on the 25th of February 2022. See the tracklist below.

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’