This arrived while I was bouncing between concert destinations like a tennis ball. It’s been a while since we had an Ultravox review. [I’m hopelessly behind on the last two ultraboxes] so why not take the effort today? When this EP was first announced, I thought it was the last bit of flavor squeezed out of the seemingly endless [and surprisingly robust] “Lament” campaign teabag. But that was not the case. Instead, this was the harbinger of the next ultrabox campaign; the one for “The Collection” that I will be passing on. But not before taking this bait and chomping down on it.

Ultravox: Love’s Great Adventure [Blank + Jones so80s Reconstruction] – UK – CD-5 [2025]

1. Love’s Great Adventure [Blank + Jones s080s Reconstruction] 5:09
2. All Stood Still [12″ Extended Re-Mix Extra] 7:11
3. Love’s Great Adventure [Steven Wilson Instrumental Mix] 3:10
4. Hymn [Alternative Instrumental Outtake] 6:03

Three of these tracks are Post-Modern remixes. Fiddling decades down the line with the original master multitrack recordings. The track record on this practice can be hit or miss. But the last track is a curio that by all rights should have been in the “Quartet” ultrabox. Maybe it was discovered in a tape cabinet after that one went to the pressing plant and shipped out?Perhaps it was a known quantity but there might not have been any room for it in that boxed set? Which is why I thought that this EP might have been an odds and ends project wrapping up the Ultravox saga for an audience that has supported an extensive reissue program for many years now.

I had loved the Blank + Jones ZTT so80s Reconstruction project where the DJs made brand new, 40-year-old sounding remixes of classic ZTT bands and material. It’s a conceit I can approve of, having heard many Post-Modern remixes which suck the vintage life out of tracks in order to make them sound current…and cheap. On the other hand, I felt that their take on “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes” on the 12″ remix disc of the “Lament” box was fair, but was overshadowed by the Steven Wilson remixes there that utterly transformed that material into something far more stellar. I’m pleased to state that the work they did on “Love’s Great Adventure” was highly successful.

The original 12″ mix of “Love’s Great Adventure” was a pretty perfunctory affair! I swear the band just played the song through instrumentally until the middle eight and spliced it into the 7″ mix. Taking a 3:06 song to 5:40 length without very much in the way of thrills. Not so this day! Those big booming drums in the Blank + Jones mix got the blood flowing on the low end while the high pitched, wailing synths energized the top end. Leaving a space for the dignity of Billy Currie’s piano to hog the spotlight with the pulsating bass synths. Then at 1:20 in the full song erupted into vibrant life.

The mix of the song proper was punchy and slightly tweaked for better impact, too. At the end of the middle eight solo by Currie, there was a drop where the sequencers stretched out for a few bars before the pounding percussion returned for the rousing climax. I loved how the sequencers were goosed for more impact with perhaps a touch of delay to fatten them. Allowing Midge Ure to reach his climax but crucially not ending that song as was traditional. Instead the sequencers and piano had a dialogue to form a new coda of stirring beauty. This thoroughly smoked the original 12″ mix for breakfast and managed to shave off a half of a minute from the running time to boot! But don’t just take my word for it. Listen.

1981’s “All Stood Still” had been the another Ultravox 12″ version that had barely whetted our appetites for more with little more than a 40 second buildup in the intro to distinguish it from the LP version. When I was that this EP would feature a new 12″ remix that was over seven minutes long, I had dared to hop that it would redress the desire for a long version of this stellar Ultravox single. After all, it was one of the top songs from their breakthrough album.
But my hopes were dashed when I heard the results on this EP.

The urgency of the pulsating synths at the core of the song was severely dissipated by the use of delay to sap the tracks energy levels down to catatonic levels from the get-go here. By the time the synths resolve themselves the moment had already been lost. Then the mix had been altered to increase separation between the elements in the formerly intense and paranoid mix. There’s way too much space here between the elements. Yet another sapping of the song’s energy.

And the vocal production on Midge Ure’s lead vocal had been given way too much spotlight. And with none of the texture to couch his performance in as the elements of the music bed were isolated and aired out, the sing simply collapsed. To say nothing of the brain-dead decision to eliminate Warren Cann’s deep backing vocals which form the basis of the track’s inimitable the call-and-response energy! Hearing the instances of the BVs with just Midge Ure present throws part of the track’s vitality right out the window. This was a catastrophically poor remix that may not have intended to destroy the formerly rip-roaring track, but ended up doing just that.

Most of the Steven Wilson remixes from the “Lament” ultrabox have been widely dispersed in vocal and instrumental form if you followed the campaign across multiple releases and formats. But the instrumental of the “Love’s Great Adventure” Wilson mix didn’t fit onto the “Lament” 2xCD Wilson edition, nor was it in the box, so it manifested here. So that we can delight in its clean, piston-pumping energy as a succinct and beautiful little gem all on its own.

Finally, there is an outtake instrumental version of “Hymn” that appears here. I’ve got to state up front that after 43 years, I’ve gotten really sick and tired of this song! It happens over time with certain songs [see also: OMD’s “Locomotion”] through overplay and over familiarity. Such songs don’t seem bad at first but after the thousand’s listening the cracks in the façade become all you can see. With “Hymn” the repetitive nature of the arrangement was its achilles heel. Lather-rinse-repeat, raise an octave, repeat again. Well, that, and the eerie similarities of the chord sequence hook to The Zones “Mourning Star;” a great song by Midge’s former Slik/PVC2 bandmates. “Mourning Star” was the better of the two songs.

This version was a completely different recording with greater emphasis on ringing guitar lines, and without the repetitive chorus being hammered into my skull, I found that I could enjoy the song more than is normal at this point. It sounded like a live recording here with a lack of keyboard overdubs. Maybe this was a demo recorded before the Monserrat sessions with George Martin producing.

Billy’s keyboard solo was all locked down but was followed on by a bass synth solo and a climax that had Warren Cann producing those stellar motorik fills that juiced the energy of the song up to peak levels as it just sort of dissolved into thin air instead of the fade that was already in the planning stages from the sounds of it. It actually managed to win me over so this was a fascinating version to hear.

This EP will be as far as I tread down the “Collection” ultrabox path, unless I get those 12-14 post-modern remixes ala carte in iTunes. I just can’t justify the cost of the next box given the huge repeat of material I already had in the earlier boxes. The days of me buying anything with the Ultravox name on it are long gone but if only for the great new Blank + Jones remix of “Love’s Great Adventure” [ironically the only track here that will be in the upcoming “Collection” box] buying this EP was worth the effort; apart from the crimes committed upon “All Stood Still.”

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