Every discussion of Ballet School becomes a discussion of “the 1980s” within a few sentences, and this one will be no different. What’s interesting is how everyone involved seems to have a tacit understanding of what “the 1980s” means and how it narrows an entire decade into a few signifiers—this band doesn’t represent the 1980s and its attendant political discord or technological advances, nor does it ever account for the incredible leaps in punk, metal, hip-hop, electronic, you name it. It doesn’t even include Michael Jackson or Prince or Bruce Springsteen.
Rather, “the 1980s” establishes a few movies and their soundtracks as the entire cultural zeitgeist, with inexcusably old-looking “teens” and their irrepressible hormones set to perky, up-tempo rhythms and an emotional tenor where the “Me Decade” filters down from Wall Street to high schoolers obsessed with true love and self-actualization. This style of music might be more prominent now than it is was 30 years ago and multinational trio Ballet School seem to be aware of that; their name could pass for a Dean Cameron-starring caper flick, the title of their debut might be too precious for even an M83 instrumental, and its lead singer has a chameleonic voice that "Saturday Night Live" could've used during the Nora Dunn era. Their first single was called “Heartbeat Overdrive” and the title alone probably makes any analysis of this record redundant.
Point being, The Dew Lasts an Hour ain’t an album, it’s an arms race, and Ballet School are at their best when they’re pushing the nuclear option. After a two-minute ambient intro that exists mostly as a reminder that Ballet School are an indie band on a label operated by Cocteau Twins' Simon Raymonde, “Pale Saint” and “Ghost” put all the signifiers at full-blast—guitars and keyboards are glazed and glistening under the same effects, pealing, swirling, and billowing to corroborate a narrator that never gets their head out of the clouds. Real drums are processed to sound like synths, and vice versa. They cut footloose at a manic pace, bright pink leggings endlessly pumping on a StairMaster. And Ballet School compensate for a lack of originality with enthusiasm—Rosie Blair’s melodies may not be all that memorable, but she sure sings the hell out of them.
If their predilection for the sounds of “the 1980s” has a particularly modern slant, it’s that Ballet School operate under the premise that populism is inherently good—Blair gives Kate Bush and Mariah Carey equal stature, which leads to some unfortunate ululation and vocal cloudbusting that undermine the reverie. The Dew Lasts an Hour is more effective as ambience than pure pop; there’s a dissonance between Blair’s skyscraping and the modest production, which actually situates the record in 2010 more than it does 1984. That was a particularly productive year for mid-fi indie bands who immersed themselves in reverb and blurred the line between 4AD and MTV, including the first Twin Shadow and Wild Nothing albums, and Abe Vigoda’s overlooked goth-pop about-face Crush.
But with the aforementioned, you could sense that the sound was secondary, a preferred filter to express either deep-seated trauma, window-watching loneliness, or slow-burning intensity. Ballet School’s emotional center, on the other hand, is much tougher to find—during “Cherish”, Blair belts, "Love is the only reason left to live/ Hey, yeah, yeah/ Love is the only lesson left to give/ Hey, yeah, yeah," which absolutely works within the skyward arc of its hook. You’re supposed to feel it rather than analyze it. But after its auspicious start, The Dew Last an Hour tries to convey similar sentiments amid agreeable, midtempo synth-pop that skimps on the pop and piles on the twinkling, harmonized guitars and vaporous melodies. What begins as a cooling blast of fresh air dissipates into pleasant ambience.
As the story goes, Blair met guitarist Michel Jun Collett as a busker in Berlin and bonded over a shared appreciation of Cocteau Twins. The facts check out: throughout, they show an eagerness to please, their originals could pass for covers and they obviously and really, really like the Cocteau Twins. But that’s about it. For now, The Dew Lasts an Hour is a proxy for “what we talk about when we talk about ‘the 1980s,'" not so much for talking about Ballet School themselves.
