"We never stood a chance." As band epitaphs go, the now-defunct Stricken City's is hard to beat. There's a bittersweet defiance in those words, a sense that they knew they were fighting an uphill battle from the very beginning and didn't mind the struggle one bit. That said, I'd have to disagree with the sentiment: Any band fronted by the relentlessly charismatic Rebekah Raa had at least a puncher's chance. Even in confined spaces-- be it the small room where the band performed for most of the "Animal Festival" video, or the group's Black Cab Session circa 2009's Songs About People I Know-- she projects an endearing, manic enthusiasm. While the other members of the band aren't so outwardly demonstrative, the group's winsome approach to the sounds and angles usually associated with UK post-punk is just as infectious. It's fitting that the final scene of Stricken City's final video features the band cavorting around a campfire at night in tribal facepaint, positing them as shiny happy Lord of the Flies refugees.
Stricken City had only two albums (and a handful of non-album tracks) in them, but Songs and Losing Colour offer a pretty fulfilling, if succint, musical life cycle. Their debut album opens with Raa singing quietly to herself, recording a vocal demo on the sort of chintzy setup where the pops of static threaten to drown out the singer. Losing Colour's first track, "Some Say", opens with a grand flourish of studio know-how. Don't treat this as a sign that Stricken City traded in their charming skittishness for some over-produced polish; rather, they're tracing the same path forged when original post-punk bands gradually turned into new wave ones, and the relentless aggression and anger gave way to different emotions and different modes of expression. This record isn't a glorified tribute to the opulence of acts like Spandau Ballet or ABC, however. The changes Stricken City made-- adding some tasteful sax here, working some polyrhythmic action there-- are small tweaks that return large dividends. Touches like the shimmering curtain draped over "Corridors" or the minimal Young Marble Giants air provided to "Bella Writer" show that the more pronounced presence of the studio on this album is equally unobtrusive.
Raa-- a vocalist whose singing style was pretty easy-going and conversational to start-- gets to loosen up even more over these tracks, at times almost affecting a cadence that's eerily similar to Morrissey's laconic vocal gait. It's a nearly unrecognizable shift, but the inclusion of a Songs remix (by UK DJ Skellington, of "Pull the House Down") makes that change clear. Why the remix is included, never mind inserted into the middle of the album, is a whole different matter. It's fine on its own, but its more rigid temperment doesn't jibe well with the relatively laid-back vibe of the rest of the album. Perhaps its inclusion is meant to mirror the changes Stricken City made with Losing Colour, to show that the band wasn't afraid to break something that already worked just fine. If it was the desire to burn their own bridges, aesthetic or otherwise, that doomed the band to their brief existance, then maybe they really didn't stand a chance. At least they went down swinging.
