News that two former members of Vukovar had started something new came as a surprise, basically because I had no idea that Dan and Buddy had left Vukovar.
Naming themselves, and I may be guilty of reading way too much into this, after ABC’s second harder more guitar orientated album, may or may not say something about what they do. I may of course be totally wrong about identifying the fact that there is any connection between their name and the name of ABC’s second album, it’s just that this is how my head works.
I was also, of course, intrigued to know whether there were any elements of their sound that had any kind of hint of Vukovar.
The lead track ‘O Eden’ snaps every thing into focus, for it’s a lush piece of synth music that has echoes of all sorts of 80s’ classic synth bands – Human League (the pre-’Dare’ period, Heaven 17, Soft Cell – and yes, hints of lush period ABC. And yes, there are some elements of that in some of Vukovar’s music.
Now usually I would almost immediately be labelling this as Classic Pop – that 80s’ hugely and slickly produced pop music with depth. But I hesitate to do this with ‘O Eden’, for this is a track with some high degree of depth, and it has these little touches that stop me from doing that. This is a beautiful track that is huge and epic. It’s not just huge soundwise but in length for this is almost 5 ½ minutes long. Something that gives you time to immerse yourself fully in the beauty.
‘Clothes’ is a different thing, a sinister creeping thing that has me thinking of Sisters of Mercy. For it has that Gothic clanging, guitar stabbing thing. It pounds away, getting deep under your skin. And it has the strangest lyrics, I’ll leave you to discover those yourself. It is really dance-y, in that post-punk kind of way.
And suddenly we are in mutant surf territory, ‘Need You Around’ is a slow dreamy song with those surf-y guitars. It’s lovely, that’s all you need to know. It’s moving and strangely emotional. And it has one of the nicest synth sounds I’ve heard in a long time – it sounds like a small church organ.
This is loveliest collection of beautiful songs I’ve heard in a long time. I love that there’s variety, I love that Beauty Stab have clearly spent time crafting the songs and how they sound. I’m looking forward to their next release.
The info
Beauty Stab are a sleaze-clad duo from the bleak industrial towns of North-West, England. Formed in 2018 by the former Vukovar angels Dan Shea & Buddy Preston, the two merged their ideas and talents together to form an Italo-disco, Glam and Northern Soul nirvana.
The duo’s first single ‘O Eden’ came out on the Hong Kong/Australian label Metal Postcard Records early 2019, prepared with two B-sides – ‘Clothes’ and ‘Need you Around’.
‘O Eden’ is the first release by Beauty Stab before their planned EP coming in Spring/Summer.
Armed with machines and obsolete devices, Buddy & Dan aim to take stages in electronic translation across the North West for faces, acquaintances old and new.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beautystabbb
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/beautystab_
