Review Summary: Wonderful 'The Smiths' aping synth pop.
Q: What happens when a female fronted synth-pop band listens to far too many records by The Smiths?
A: Dubstar's debut album 'Disgraceful'.
The influence of Morrissey and Marr is all over place on this record, through the clean-cut indie jangle guitars, through the dips and rises of vocalist Sarah Blackwood's trills and even through the part on 'The Day I See You Again' where they actually namecheck Morrissey himself ("If the man he's grown to be / Is more Morrison / Than Morrissey")... The whole album exudes Smiths-ian obsession from every pore. Thankfully, Dubstar are somewhat saved from being labeled total copycats by grounding themselves whole-heartedly in the synth-pop genre.
Because whilst there are a lot of the aforementioned jangle guitars, the driving musical forces on this LP are both the giant, glacial keyboards and the pulsating, mechanical beats. This has the effect of making even the most indie-orientated tracks glisten with strident pop energy. Take the band's cover of Billy Bragg's 'St Swithen's Day'. The original was quite a murky sounding tune, albeit one soaked in a great ochestrated meloncholia. But the version here is underslung by a growling bass & beats combo, and features a crechendo of icey synths that brings out the underlying emotion of the song ("And the times that we all hoped would last / Like a train they have gone by so fast / And although we stood together at the edge of the platform / We were not moved by them") with just as much skill and lightness of touch as the original.
And there are many other tunes that strike the same emotive, gold-guilded rut as 'St Swithen's Day' too. The swaggering night-time gleam of opening track 'Stars' was the album's big hit, and comes storming out of the gates here like the greatest single that The Pet Shp Boys never wrote, whilst 'Not So Manic Now' puts up a delightfully English front, with it's fantastic "I was making myself / The usual cup of tea / When the doorbell strangely rang" lyric sticking in the memory long after the album closes out.
Elsewhere, the boat is pushed out a bit further into left-field with the very strange melodies of 'Popdorian' and 'Not Once Not ever', the latter of which is bizzarely similar to the background music of Sonic The Hedgehog's Oil Ocean zone, with it's weird eastern flavour and echoey keyboard lines... And while we're talking about video games, the cutesy 'Elevator Song' is worth a mention, starting as it does with a fairly hillarious breakdown that sounds like it's been lifted strait from an 8-bit Nintendo cart, before abruptly sprialing into an utterly thowaway but insanely catchy pop single (again... much in the same vein as The Smiths).
And then there is the highlight of the album in the form 'Just A Girl She Said'. Memorable synth lines usher in a Mournful tale of sexual equality ("I'm just a girl, she said / Talk down to me and take me to bed / I don't think, I don't feel / And I don't really matter at all") that would give even the mighty Morrissey a run for his money in the lyrical department. It's a great track, and one that's bolstered by a powerful vocal delivery from Ms Blackwood.
In the end, 'Disgraceful' isn't disgraceful whatsoever. It's a wonderfully consistant album, with tons of great riffs and excellent lyricism. There isn't anything on this record that takes a noticible downturn in quality, and nothing overstays it's welcome. And it's one of the greatest synth-pop albums ever, in my humble opinion.
