Soft Cell Confirm Release Date For Sixth And Final Album 'Danceteria', Share Title Track
Tuesday, 09 June 2026
Written by Jon Stickler
Photo: Mike Owen
Soft Cell's sixth and final album now has a release date.
'Danceteria' was announced last October, the same month the duo's co-founder Dave Ball passed away aged 66. Bringing the curtain down on the group's 47-year career, it will arrive on September 25. Singer and frontman Marc Almond said:
"'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.
"Soft Cell have always had a strong connection with New York, and my Soft Cell lyrics often look at America through British eyes. New York in the 1980s was a particularly creative place for me. It was a pivotal era in terms of changes in my personal life and changes in the city itself. New York shaped Soft Cell as it opened up a whole new world of possibilities. It was dirty, dark and dangerous – a real Wild West – but it was also deeply inspiring and exciting.
"A lot of our original influences came from America anyway: New York punk, Devo, Suicide, Lou Reed, disco and 1960s soul. But New York was like nowhere else on earth. There were 24-hour nightclubs, music, art and underground theatre. It offered a cornucopia of energy and edge, and the lyrics on ‘Danceteria’ reflect that time of my life."
Alongside the news, Almond has shared the record's title track, a vibrant disco-pop offering that arrives with a video by collage artist Vicki Bennett. The album will also include Soft Cell's earlier track Out Come The Freaks featuring Nona Hendryx, a cover of Was (Not Was)'s 1981 classic.
"There can be no more recordings of Soft Cell without Dave," Almond added. "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."
Soft Cell are currently on the road in North America supporting The Human League on The Generations Tour.
Marc Almond will also play a handful of solo shows in the UK this summer, including a special guest appearance with The Human League at Live At Ludlow Castle in Shropshire on July 18 and a date with Gary Numan at the Palace Bowl Presents series at London's Crystal Palace Bowl on August 6. Tickets are on sale now.
'Danceteria' tracklist:
1. Elusive
2. Danceteria
3. The Space Inside
4. Times Square
5. Two Of A Kind
6. The Rainbow Room
7. In Heaven (When I Dance With You)
8. Decadence Is Hard Work
9. Crackland
10. What Is Your Morality
11. Losing Yourself
12. After Hours
13. Wave To America
14. Out Come The Freaks
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