Salvation

Salvation is the fifth album by Alphaville, released in 1997 in Europe, and - with different artwork and three bonus tracks - in the U.S. in 1999. Salvation marked a tumultuous time for the band: Ricky Echolette had left Alphaville during the production and Marian Gold and Bernd Lloyd were in a constant struggle with their record label which resulted in virtually no promotion for this album, and the subsequent split that led Alphaville to establishing their own, concert- and online-focused communication, promotion, and distribution platform. Even though the circumstances for Salvation were not favorable, the album became a success - the first one for Alphaville since their 1986 release Afternoons in Utopia. This is mainly due to the band returning to their synthpop-roots and heavily infusing them with dance/techno, a departure from their experimental predecessors, Prostitute and The Breathtaking Blue. 200,000 copies of the album have been sold.