Alcazar - Disco Defenders album review

1 comment | Published by Rach Read |

The result of an unfortunate accident with some highlighters

Was there ever an album more aptly titled than Alcazar’s Disco Defenders? Whilst most other bands reach their third studio album making noises about maturing and musical progression, Alcazar continue to defend the art of disco with spangly sparkly Scandipop at its best.

They may have done a bit of a Sugababes along the way (picking up and dropping lead singer Andreas’ then boyfriend, Magnus and replacing AWOL glamour-puss Annikafiore with Lina) but with Andreas’ effortless soar of a voice in fine fettle and their brand of shimmery stompers in tact, Disco Defenders sees Alcazar record their strongest album to date.

Defiant comeback single We Keep On Rockin’ was everything and more one could want from an Alcazar single – hand claps, a video involving disco balls, a madcap dance routine and the infamous mention of their own name within the lyrics. From then on, Disco Defenders rarely lets up the pace – Burnin’ is a raging dance inferno, Stay The Night was robbed for becoming Sweden’s Eurovision entry and features Alcazar’s usual gung-ho attitude to promiscuity (‘If you stay the night, I could be your lover, hold on tight… Baby what a shame, not a cab in sight’), From Brazil With Love deliciously rhymes ‘samba’ with ‘bananas’ and Inhibitions features the most glorious use of a surf guitar since Girls Aloud’s Sound of the Underground. And that’s only the first five tracks.

Harlem Nights is surely the song that the adjective ‘toe-tapping’ was created for, with a fantastic bridge about boys lighting cigarettes with a sneer and noise tasting like smoke and bad gin (mixed sensory metaphor alert!), some ‘do do do’s thrown in for good measure and a series of epic key changes around the middle eight area. Put The Top Down is a saunter through summer that was made for aspirational adverts of pretty people laughing in the sun, save for the fact that with a line like ‘never mind the UV rays’, it’s unlikely to be used for sun protection adverts any time soon.

On We Keep On Rockin’, the trio modestly sing ‘can’t get enough of the groove of Alcazar’. Damn straight we can’t because this album’s fabulous. Welcome back Alcazar, we’ve missed you.

May is Scandipop month on teentoday.co.uk - see all our great Scandipop content here.

(We love this performance for all kinds of reasons, including but not limited to: Tess’ massive hair, Andreas’ orgasm face just before the middle 8, the girls’ ooooo-oooooo bits, random shots of the backs of usually bald audience members’ heads and the ridiculous middle 8 dance routine involving moves like push the trolley, stir the pot, puppets-on-a-string and some trademark Alcazar hand claps.)