Synthpop
1981
Just as the cover promises, Non-Stop.. documents deviant back-alley romances, drugs and the ultimate emptiness of British nightlife in lurid detail. While Dave Ball's keyboard riffs and Marc Almond's vocals are far too pretty to trace a direct lineage to Suicide's synthpunk minimalism, everything else about the album aligns nicely with the paranoia, longing and despair of the aforementioned.
Far from the sort of mostly PG-rated jaunts of contemporaries such as Depeche Mode, Soft Cell relentlessly dabbles in experimentation, from sweeping ballads ("Say Hello, Wave Goodbye"), to S&M-themed rave-ups ("Sex Dwarf"), and fascinatingly, a very competent, coquettish rap verse from Almond’s drug dealer Cindy Ecstasy on the mischievous "Seedy Films".
