75 minutes, 4 seconds

Dubstar
Disgraceful

I'd call Dubstar a guilty pleasure, but what's to feel guilty about? I love Sarah Blackwood's angelic yet cool vocal delivery and pronounced northern accent. And Steve Hillier's cynically funny lyrics about failed relationships. Even the music, a pastiche of jangly indie rock and electronic pop, manages to be catchy without sticking annoyingly in your brain.

This is the Japanese edition of Disgraceful, which offers an extra track or two not found on the British release. Some of these songs also wound up on Goodbye, which was released for the U.S. market. And then there are a bunch of CD singles, most worth getting for the unreleased material. (Dubstar, like Lush, is way overdue for some sort of box set.)

Blackwood went on to front the aggressively mediocre electroclash band Client, and while it's nice to still hear her voice, listening to Client's subpar songs and pale lyrics only makes me miss Dubstar more. Is there hope? If you go to the official Dubstar Web site, it seems to indicate that something will happen in 2007. But that's it--no links, no further info, nothing. Reunion? Retrospective? Tour? So coy...

Also today:

75:02 Caul, Epiphany/Fortunate
74:55 Qntal, IV: Ozymandias
74:42 Moctan, Suspect