None of it could have happened without power ballads. The first time you heard “Beautiful”, before you had even heard of The Parlotones, you must have felt it: Kahn Morbee’s voice has drama in spades. Fast forward to “Push Me To The Floor”, the opening track of Stardust Galaxies, and he’s still at it. Morbee’s quivering, velvety vox breaks the song wide open, spilling emo guts all over some poor girl out there who’s “worth is worth nothing when it’s at someone else’s cost”.

Wouldn’t it be terrible if your greatest  strength became your greatest weakness, if your best songs became some kind of formula... oh, wait. To be fair, Stardust Galaxies doesn’t have too many flea-ridden stowaways aboard, but it’s a shame we have to put up with songs like “It’s Only Science”, when we’re really holding out for another “Fly To The Moon”. The former is straight out of the Parlotones cookbook and rambles on about squirrels and “comforting the breeze”, while the latter is an original pop song with something to say.

The usual heart-breaker themes apply, but interestingly, we see a chart-minded band grappling with the South African experience. It might not make sense to those coveted audiences in London and New York, but Morbee returns again and again to the fears and dreams of suburban Jozi. Whether or not every whitey in the country is an Australian waiting to happen, “Brighter Side Of Hell” sums it up best: “We’re trying our best to run away, the truth is we really love it here”. Fear, commingled with desire, wrapped up in a nice, big identity crisis. There’s more, namely a nod to Long Walk To Freedom in “Should We Fight Back?”, and further gritty realities of local living in “Welcome To The Weekend”.

 The Parlotones are not, will never be any kind of vehicle for political awakening. As brave as it is for taking bolder themes to the frivolous airwaves, Stardust Galaxies is really a just a pop album, a scrapbook of melodies. You’ll find much more eloquent social commentary in newspaper columns, but then you won’t find as good an ear as Kahn Morbee’s down at The Putsonderwater Post, will you?

That ear was put to work on the title track, “Stardust Galaxies” a collaboration with Freshlyground’s Zolani Mahola. Taking the “power” out of the “power ballad” for a change, the track leaves just enough room for Mahola’s honeyed vocals and Morbee’s drama-rama to really come together. It’s by far the best work on the album and certainly one of the best collaborations of the year.

We really need to let these songs speak for themselves. Some of them will whimper and be forgotten, while others will bellow their credentials from your radio speakers and continue to do so for some time. Whatever we think of Stardust Galaxies as a whole, it has enough superpowered ballads and catchy tunes to woo the fast-growing Parlotones faithful, one song at a time.