The Dead 60s Come Over All Dub On Us
The Dead 60s are minimal; in fact they're minimal to the extent of almost being just background noise. The fact that the album is called 'Space Invader Dub' is a dead give away, it's got dub running through it the way a stick of rock has colourful lettering running through it. It's like they've taken Bob Marley, gotten rid of the vocals, and put it through a Specials machine - you can almost hear 'Ghost Town' sometimes, but with added bleeps and whistles. The thing is, as much as I want to like this album, it really could benefit from some more vocals than there are already - it just gets rather repetitive at times.
It's a shame, because with a few more ideas, it could be really good. 'No Control Dub' is along the right lines, with a cool little stop start intro that almost lulls you thinking it's all over before it's even started. Even though it descends into the same tune repeated over and again, the monotony is broken up by a dinky melody that lightens the atmosphere just a touch. Again, 'Tower Block Dub' follows the same ideas with even more success, and we can see that the Dead 60s do know the meaning of the word variation. A bleepy, whizzy start sounds more like LCD Soundsystem than anything else, and it carries on with a chilled out bit of glockenspiel.
In fact, that LCD Soundsystem feel carries on but through a more Specials-style kaleidoscope on 'Police Car Dub'. As you might expect, with a title like that there are police sirens aplenty but it's creepy and the Dead 60s heritage is clear. With the odd smattering of fuzzed out vocals, and horror ride keyboard, it's probably the best tune on the album. Creepy, sinister tracks are something they do well, as 'Flight Mission Dub' is rather good too.
Unfortunately for the band, that experimentalism doesn't last throughout the whole album. 'Too Much TV Dub' and 'Invader Dub', for example, seem to be lacking in any originality or creativity, and just coast along on not much at all. Every so often, they'll be a 'too much TV' there or a random bleep here, but that's if we're lucky. Compared to some of the rest of the tracks on the 'Space Invader Dub', they're just about muzak - it's not particularly memorable.
Basically, it sounds as if the band smoked too much dope half the time whilst writing this album and it leaves me feeling rather frustrated. If there were more of tracks like 'Police Car Dub', it would be a better listen.