“Danceteria” is Soft Cell’s last album with Dave Ball, completed before his death in October 2025. It is an autobiographical account of New York nightlife in the early 1980s
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Marc Almond greeted Dave Ball in the way that most resembles him, with a record to dance to. “Danceteria” was completed before Ball died in October 2025, and is released today with his signature in every track.
The artistic bond between the two sustains the entire work, yet the elegiac tone remains outside the door, almost out of courtesy towards those who are no longer here. What emerged was something closer to a memorial party than a funeral.
The journey is autobiographical and has precise coordinates: New York in the early 1980s, Times Square, the clubs, the excesses, a subculture that lived at night because it had no citizenship during the day. The title refers to the club in Manhattan where that world met, and the lineup is enough to draw the map, from Times Square to Crackland, from The Rainbow Room to Decadence Is Hard Work.
Anyone who has consumed “Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret” immediately recognizes the kinship, especially in the lyrics. Both records tell of a transgressive nightlife, but the 1981 debut had the smell of Soho and its London basements, while “Danceteria” moves the story overseas.
The comparison must be made, and this album is not appropriate. It lacks the brash energy of the 20s, the sense that Almond and Ball were making something up as they played it. “Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret” remains an unattainable masterpiece even for those who signed it.
“Danceteria” gains ground on the gaze. Soft Cell recover the most marginal and inclusive side of New York nightlife, crossing clubs and neighborhoods, sexuality and drugs, loneliness and that need to belong that pushed people into a club at three in the morning. The past never becomes a postcard: Almond tells the story in first person, as someone who was there.
The sound rests on Ball’s analog synths and old school electronics, and this is where the record becomes a testament to his vision. Forty-five years after its debut, that language does not need to be updated. The limits remain, and they all lie in the comparison with 1981. The vitality is that of those who remember the party rather than those who are experiencing it, and the writing is content to evoke in more than one passage.
The closure is up to Out Come the Freakscover of Was (Not Was) with Nona Hendryx of the Labellae. No song could tell the duo’s story better: an invitation addressed to the outcasts, sung by two who have never moved from the margins.
A chapter closes, and it closes on the track.
SCORE: 7.00
TO LISTEN NOW
Elusive – Losing Yourself – Out Come the Freaks
TO BE SKIPPED IMMEDIATELY
Nothing to taste everything at least once!
