Soft Cell announce final album ‘Danceteria’ with disco-ready title track

Soft Cell have announced the release date for their final album, ‘Danceteria’, alongside the video for the title track.

The synth-pop legends, comprised of vocalist Marc Almond and instrumentalist Dave Ball, will release the album on September 25, a posthumous release following the death of Ball last year aged 66. The first single, the album’s title track, is out now and you can listen to it below.

The pair shot to stardom in the early ‘80s with the album ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’ and its hit single, ‘Tainted Love’ (a cover of the 1964 Gloria Jones song). ‘Danceteria’ will be their seventh album, and their third since reuniting in 2022 after decades to release the LP ‘Happiness Not Included’.

The album is available for pre-order here.

Almond said in a statement: “’Danceteria’ is a love letter to New York in the early ’80s. The time we spent in New York – where we recorded our first three albums – shaped us both as artists and people. To celebrate this period is a fitting farewell to Dave Ball and the final Soft Cell studio album.”

Regarding the future of the group, he said: “There can be no more recordings of Soft Cell without Dave, it would not be possible. The sad reality is that Dave Ball was half of Soft Cell, and live work aside, I can’t write Soft Cell songs without him.”

The ‘Danceteria’ tracklist is:

‘Elusive’
‘Danceteria’
‘The Space Inside’
‘Times Square’
‘Two Of A Kind’
‘The Rainbow Room’
‘In Heaven (When I Dance With You)’
‘Decadence Is Hard Work’
‘Crackland’
‘What Is Your Morality’
‘Losing Yourself’
‘After Hours’
‘Wave To America’
‘Out Come The Freaks’

Last November, an interview Ball gave before his death revealed that ‘Danceteria’ was inspired by his morphine trips he experienced while being treated in hospital in the final months of his life.