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Ultravox: Brilliant

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Chrysalis Records
Released: 2012.05.25
Time:
 52:48
Category: Synthpop, New Wave
Producer(s): Ultravox, Stephen Lipson
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.ultravox.org.uk
Appears with: Midge Ure
Purchase date: 2012
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Live (Ch.Cross/B.Currie/M.Ure) - 4:11
[2] Flow (Ch.Cross/B.Currie/M.Ure) - 4:24
[3] Brilliant (Ch.Cross/B.Currie/M.Ure) - 4:22
[4] Change (Ch.Cross/B.Currie/M.Ure) - 4:30
[5] Rise (Ch.Cross/B.Currie/M.Ure) - 4:04
[6] Remembering (Ch.Cross/B.Currie/M.Ure) - 3:43
[7] Hello (Ch.Cross/B.Currie/M.Ure) - 5:40
[8] One (Ch.Cross/B.Currie/M.Ure) - 4:43
[9] Fall (Ch.Cross/B.Currie/M.Ure) - 4:07
[10] Lie (Ch.Cross/B.Currie/M.Ure) - 4:35
[11] Satellite (Ch.Cross/B.Currie/M.Ure) - 3:58
[12] Contact (Ch.Cross/B.Currie/M.Ure) - 4:31

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Warren Cann - Drums, Producer
Chris Cross - Bass, Synthesiser, Producer
Billy Currie - Piano, Violin, Synthesiser, Producer
Midge Ure - Vocals, Guitar, Synthesiser, Producer

Stephen Lipson - Mixing, Producer
Tom Weir - Engineer
Mazen Murad - Mastering
Darren Evans - Design

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Recorded  in January-December 2011 at the Battery Studios, Sarm Studios (London, England); Environment Studio (Bath, England); The Lakehouse (Montreal, Canada)



28 years have passed since the most successful incarnation of Ultravox (vocalist Midge Ure, bassist Chris Cross, keyboardist Billy Currie, and drummer Warren Cann) have recorded together, but their first studio album since 1984's Lament shows that nothing much has changed. Co-produced with Stephen Lipson (Annie Lennox), the rather confidently titled Brilliant offers little to explain what took them so long. Every single one of its 12 tracks, from the chest-thumping pomp rock of opener "Live" to the dreary soul balladry of closer "Contact," feels like they've been dug up from the Vienna era rather than the byproduct of a new, creative second wind. The album begins, intriguingly enough, with "Flow" throwing everything from shimmering shoegazey riffs to bagpipes into the stadium rock mix, while the title track's rubbery, synth basslines, glacial piano chords, and Gregorian chants help create an engaging slice of slightly sinister synth pop. But after such a lengthy absence, it's disappointing to find that Brilliant runs out of steam so soon, with a string of plodding, proggy ballads ("Remembering," "Hello," "One") which are far more West End than New Wave. Of course, there's always been a sense of the theatrical about Ultravox, but here it's so po-faced and over-earnest that it's difficult to sit through. It's by no means an embarrassment of a comeback, but an embarrassment would arguably have been more fun than most of Brilliant's self-indulgent, monotonous fare.

Jon O'Brien - All Music Guide



ALMOST three decades after their last studio album, the classic line-up of this seminal band; Midge Ure, Billy Currie, Chris Cross and Warren Cann, have released an album of new material. The scale and sound of this new album is epic and is a reminder of how great this bad was – and is, and how influential they have been. The band has never been a part of the mainstream, as Midge Ure says, “We didn’t fit into any musical camp, we straddled them.” He continues, “At times we were an out-and-out rock band, but we made the sound with synthesisers as well as guitars.”

According to Ure, there is a direct link between the music they did in the eighties and today. “We don’t try and make it sound like that, it’s just what comes out.” And what has come out this time is truly astonishing. The opening barrage of Live has the trademark motifs and Flow is pure rock, and with the single and title track Brilliant we have the huge choruses, passionate vocals, driving rhythm and pulsing electronics.

The atmospheric One is a delight and Change is reminiscent of Fade To Grey and is classic Ultravox. The dramatic Lie is a breath of air after the seemingly austere Fall. The closing track is called Contact and is Ure’s favourite. “It reflects how technology has taken over our lives and how we communicate through that technology.”

Midge’s vocals throughout the album are excellent and in parts he sounds like a totally different singer, whilst Billy Currie’s violin playing is at it’s best on Satellite. All in all, it is recognisably Ultravox, but the joy is that it sounds like the eighties, but also contemporary.

Martin Hutchinson - 3 June 2012
The Bolton News



In a recent interview with the Spanish magazine Metropoli, former Ultravox singer John Foxx had this to say about nostalgia: “It’s an illness. It’s a kind of death. Why should anyone attempt to imitate themselves as a young man – often a foolish young man? You have to be blind, vain, and terribly insecure to do this. There is absolutely no point in looking backwards when there is still so much to investigate.” While he wasn’t being asked about the band he founded, it’s pretty clear that Foxx would think that the idea of Ultravox reuniting with his replacement (Midge Ure) is faintly ridiculous for a number of reasons – and it’s not hard to disagree with that assessment.

The Foxx-era Ultravox was a futuristic and aggressive synth-pop act, indebted to both krautrock experimentalism and the punk rock movement. It did not meet with much success, but it’s generally regarded as one of the more innovative acts of the early New Wave movement. After Foxx left the band, Ultravox became one of the most popular and successful bands of New Wave’s commercial era and made a string of records that, while certainly not all that groundbreaking, nonetheless captured the epic melodrama that so defined the sound of the early ’80s. It was, basically, the European pop version of Van Halen vs. Van Hagar, but if David Lee Roth was more into the Velvet Underground than Black Oak Arkansas.

This “reunion” album brings vocalist/guitarist Midge Ure (a.k.a. Sammy Hagar) back together with the “classic” lineup of Chris Cross (bass), Billy Currie (synthesizers), and Warren Cann (drums), and revisits the unapologetically huge synth-rock sound that the band was so successful with between 1980 and 1986. Within the first minute of Brilliant, the skyscraping anthemry, the pulsing synth lines, and the gorgeous textures of “Live Again” immediately evoke the band’s Vienna/Rage in Eden era, during which legendary krautrock producer Conny Plank helped Ultravox connect the experimentalism of their early years with their mainstream ambitions. Contained within that song is pretty much any reason one would have to pay attention to an Ultravox album in 2012.

Unfortunately, after that, Brilliant quickly loses the plot. Before the album even hits the halfway mark, the band seems to have completely run out of steam and focus, unable to decide if stadium-sized fluff like “Flow” or synth-heavy dirges like “The Change” are the right way to go. By the time the album reaches the witheringly dull second half, half-baked, late-’80s leftovers like “Satellite” and bloodless midtempo numbers like “This One” very nearly suck all the remaining life out of Brilliant. Of course, this is where the band slips in the most interesting song on the whole album: “Fall” is part musical theater solo number, part twisted synth-pop, and all epic drama. It’s almost uncomfortable to listen to, but unlike the discomfort caused by the rest of Brilliant, it actually makes you want to hear more where it came from.

J.Ferguson - May 31, 2012
© 2007-2015 Consequence of Sound



Brilliant, stylised as Brill!ant is the eleventh studio album by the British synthpop band Ultravox, released on 25 May 2012 by Chrysalis Records. It is the first new album in 28 years by the classic Ultravox line-up of Midge Ure, Billy Currie, Warren Cann and Chris Cross, the last one being 1984's Lament. The title track of the album was announced as the lead single, which premiered on 17 April 2012 on BBC Radio 2.

Brilliant debuted at number twenty-one on the UK Albums Chart, selling 6,100 copies in its first week, but received mixed reviews from critics.

Wikipedia.org
 

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