Soft Cell’s “In Heaven (When I Dance With You)” comes striding out of Danceteria with a lipstick grin and enough downtown perfume to turn the subway into its own discotheque. Marc Almond sings as though the dance floor has waited forty-seven years for him, while the late, great Dave Ball built the track from buoyant keyboards, clipped percussion, and bass that nudges the hips toward misbehaviour. The tune feels immediate, polished, and full of the odd angles that have always made Soft Cell excellent party hosts.
“Soft Cell have always had a strong connection with New York, and my Soft Cell lyrics often look at America through British eyes,” says Almond. “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.”
That biography lives inside the record; a museum tag would only get in the way. Ball’s arrangement keeps changing the room by inches: a bright keyboard figure, a sly rhythmic turn, then a chorus broad enough for strangers to become temporary relatives. Almond works the lyric with the seasoned theatricality of someone who knows sincerity can wear eyeliner and still mean every word. His delivery carries delight, appetite, and the suspicion that somebody has already stolen your coat.
“In Heaven (When I Dance With You) is a celebration of the early ’80s joyful disco scene,” says Almond. “A coming together of the sentiments of the time. I wanted it to be that moment when you run to the dance floor.”
Almond gets his wish; the single finds disco’s social velocity: private feeling becomes public motion, and nobody needs to fill out a form. Its summer brightness carries a small ache because the track belongs to Ball’s farewell, completed two days before his death. That knowledge adds weight, yet the music keeps moving with generosity and comic grace; even grief is asked to check its shoes at the floor’s edge.
As a preview of Soft Cell’s final album, In Heaven (When I Dance With You) makes a persuasive invitation. It remembers a New York of clubs, art kids, queer communion, bad decisions, and excellent shoes, then converts memory into present-tense pleasure. Ball’s production remains precise and playful; Almond gives the melody a grin wide enough to smuggle history through customs. Soft Cell leave the party as they entered it: with machines humming, hearts exposed, and somebody in the corner wondering whether dawn is really necessary.
Listen below:
Due September 25th 2026, via Republic of Music, Danceteria will be released on vinyl and CD, with the CD edition expanded to 14 tracks through the bonus cuts Crackland and What Is Your Morality.
Listen to In Heaven (When I Dance With You) below and order it here. You can pre-order Danceteria here.
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