For a band who supposedly espouse the punk ethos, The Duel’s fourth LP ‘Soundtrack to the End of the World’ doesn’t seem all that punk to me. Sure, punk is all about non-conformity and not giving a crap, but concept albums are surely the domain of prog rock, the music punk was supposed to smash. And this is a concept album.
The first track – ‘The Zak Splash Story’ – is a straight narrative piece with lengthy musical interludes. It has a running time of 42 minutes, which isn’t overtly punk. The keyboards aren’t exactly punk, either. The biggest issue, however, is the simple fact that it’s not all that good: the story’s predictable and uninspiring (and the ‘twist’ at the end? Er, no. Just no) and the music matches it.
After this, there are another 8 songs, which are all very much standard punk fare. Granted, it’s got an authentic-sounding old-school vibe at its core, and there are some cuts that are choppy and pack some attitude, but it’s all pretty run of the mill. the inclusion of ‘Splash on You’, the fictional hit in the Zak Splash story, is just a bad idea, not least of all because I very much doubt anyone would believe it could be a ‘smash’.
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And then there are those bloody awful Ultravox synths twiddling all over half the songs. Put simply, they sound naff and ruin what would otherwise be a fairly mediocre album.
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