After signing to Factory Benelux in 1982 following their "noisy" and "goofy" debut album Different Measures, Drastic Movement (1979), the band settled into a new, less aggressive sound featuring influences of industrial music and funk.

Considered a high point of the ultra movement, the record features cold, electronic tones and darkly humorous lyrics from lead singer and songwriter Wally van Middendorp.

"[10] According to the magazine Oor, Sparks in a Dark Room was "the modest high point of the Ultra-revival, the avant-garde postpunk movement of which Amsterdam was the center and Minny Pops the pioneers.

"[11] The journalist described the album as more normal than its predecessor, and shows Middentrop "attempting actual singing," saying "the vibe became moody, and the sound (with its synth carpets in minor) merged nicely with Factory.

[12] "Dream", "Tracking", "Trance" and "A Feeling" all contain motorik rhythms whilst "Black Eye" and "Vital" are described as "eerie, twilit essays.

melody", whilst the ninth track "Experience" possesses an ambience that has been compared with Gary Numan's best work, "but with completely different results thanks to the Minny Pops vocal style.

[13] On 24 March 2014, Factory Benelux (by then run by James Nice of LTM) remastered and re-released the album as an expansive double CD set, the first disc containing the same track listing as the LTM edition whilst the bonus disc features an entire live performance of thirteen songs recorded at the Melkweg in Amsterdam on 7 April 2012 as part of the band's 30th anniversary tour, with original members Wally Van Middendorp, Wim Dekker and Pieter Mulder augmented by guitarist Mark Ritsema.

[15] Although mostly overlooked upon its initial release, Sparks in a Dark Room had become increasingly noted over time, and critical acclaim greeted the album upon its original 2003 reissue.

[20] Uncut said "the cold menace of the album sounds remarkably fresh 20 years on, bearing favourable comparisons with contemporaries such as Simple Minds and Tubeway Army as well as the current crop of analogue pretenders.

"[12] A reviewer for Brainwashed commented on the album's uniqueness, saying: "If you're aware of the music happening in Belgium in the early 1980s (particularly Siglo XX, the Neon Judgement, and A Blaze Colour) then the gloomy monotone grooves of Sparks in a Dark Room will immediately sound familiar.

Although too eccentric to make sense of their regular comparisons to Interpol, this lavish expansion of their second album from 1982 is a good starting point, thanks to its Cabaret Voltaire pulse and Wally van Middendorp's tongue-in-cheek dark monologues."

[25] Whisperin' and Hollerin' said the album was "a real lost electropop classic from a time when minimal synth-pop crossovers were rightly lauded as being pioneering.

Take this opportunity to hear the misery missed,"[27] whilst Gullbuy said the album "paints a vivid picture of this lost Dutch band.

"[28] Peter Heselmans Peek-a-boo Magazine, who rated it nine stars out of ten, said "Sparks in a Dark Room is really a classic, and a must have for every lover of minimal synthpop.

The band of 2012 (according to the Minny Pops concept, including two members not part of the original setting) is to the point, and Wally's declamations sound urgent.