“’Danceteria’ is a love letter to New York in the early 80s. To celebrate this period is a fitting farewell to Dave Ball”: Marc Almond
When the sad news broke that Dave Ball had passed away, those who had grown up with the sounds of Synth Britannia were in shock. As one half of SOFT CELL with Marc Almond, Ball was central to their brilliant 1981 debut album ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’ with his Roland Synthe-Bass SB100 offsetting with a state-of-the-art NED Synclavier to give that record with a very distinct sound.
Following SOFT CELL reuniting for a second time in 2018, a new album ‘*Happiness Not Included’ was released in 2022. While Dave Ball had a number of health issues, work continued on a follow-up and 2 days before his passing, work was completed on ‘Danceteria’, SOFT CELL’s sixth and final studio album. A bittersweet, neon-drenched love letter to New York where the duo completed ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’, ‘Danceteria’ is conceived as a day-in-the-life of Manhattan, bouncing from hedonistic nightfall to bleary-eyed morning light.
Opening with the instrumental ‘Elusive’, Ball’s booming bass and glitzy arpeggios lock horns with 808 snares and a sleazy sax. It perfectly evokes images of yellow cabs at nightfall in a pre-gentrified Manhattan. The tempo shifts up a gear for the euphoric ‘Danceteria’ title track. It is a rousing, VILLAGE PEOPLE-inspired disco stampede given a characteristically cynical edge courtesy of a Marc Almond rap and a penetrating Dave Ball lead synth.
Anchored by a solid electronic backing, ‘The Space Inside’ is superb and weaves filmic European melodies with gothic choirs to easily mark it as an album highlight. Meanwhile ‘Times Square’ leans heavily into nocturnal ERASURE territory in a triplet-driven cousin to ‘Last Chance’ from their 2002 comeback ‘Cruelty Without Beauty’. The atmosphere shifts with the excellent ‘Two Of A Kind’ boasting an enticing rhythmic snap; as it gets threateningly discordant in places, the song captures that art-school friction which always separated SOFT CELL from their Synth Britannia contemporaries.
The mood subsides for ‘The Rainbow Room’, a deeply heartfelt ballad that finds Almond reminiscing and it provides some emotional breathing space before the Schaffel stomp of ‘In Heaven (When I Dance With You)’ throws in a fistful of glitter and grit. ‘Decadence Is Hard Work’ shifts the thrust back onto the dancefloor though the chorus and middle-eight let it down slightly while ‘Crackland’ refuses to hide its sinister subject matter, utilising stabs of organ and flute to do battle behind Almond’s seedy narrative.
‘What Is Your Morality?’ acts as a rhetorical, vocoder-assisted question; the heavily processed vocals add a wonderfully icy Moroder-esque touch to a deeply hypnotic synth groove but ‘Losing Yourself’ sparkles within an avant-Motorik cocoon, slowly developing its dark atmospheric backdrop. Not a cover of THE VELVET UDERGROUND song voiced by Mo Tucker, ‘After Hours’ capture that weary comedown as nocturnal melodic sweeps and gentle rings soundtrack the rising sun over the East River.
Photo by Mike Owen
Aimed squarely at the dancefloor, ‘Wave To America’ is driven by an uplifting, choir-assisted chorus and a playful synth riff to celebrate the positives of the USA amidst the horrors of the Reagan era; it’s a sentiment that today can easily be mapped onto Trump and MAGA. An ode to the outsiders who found solace in SOFT CELL, a cover of the WAS (NOT WAS) favourite ‘Out Come The Freaks’ closes; featuring the vocals of Nona Hendryx with both Ball and Almond, a punchy electronic bass acts drives this funky update but as a fitting farewell, it all ends with just a lone Dave Ball’s growl declaring “woodwork squeaks and out come the freaks…”
Without Dave Ball, there can be no more SOFT CELL but despite the sadness, ‘Danceteria’ is on the whole is a euphoric uplifting experience. As a curtain call to a 47-year partnership, it is the sound of two Leeds Polytechnic art school students coming full circle and leaving the dancefloor for the final time.
In memory of Dave Ball 1959 – 2025
‘Danceteria’ is released in a variety of formats on 25th September 2026 by Republic of Music, available from https://www.softcell.co.uk/product-category/music
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Text by Chi Ming Lai
23rd September 2026
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