Kubb were the band formed by Harry Collier -- a singer/songwriter originally from Liverpool but raised in the Caribbean -- along with two friends,
Dominic Greensmith on drums and
John Tilley on keyboards. Collier was spotted by
Rollo from
Faithless while waiting tables at a London restaurant, and allegedly sang a version of "Happy Birthday" to a customer that got the attention of
Rollo. With the singles "Remain," "Wicked Soul," and "Grow" all getting progressively higher in the charts,
Kubb's debut album,
Mother, was released at the end of 2005, at a time when it had to compete with MOR favorites advertised with million-pound budgets on TV and greatest-hits compilations from just about everybody who had ever recorded even one single. Because of the timing,
Mother got a bit lost in the Christmas rush, but perhaps it also got lost because too many tracks sound like the music of others. "Chemical," the longest track on the album at just over six minutes, was a dead ringer for a
Radiohead song, as was the track that closed the album, "Burn Again." "Alcatraz" was
Keane in disguise, with the same falsetto vocals, and as for "Without You," not only did it nearly share the title with
U2's "With or Without You," it featured guitar backing strikingly similar to
the Edge throughout the song. It also really wasn't Harry Collier's fault that on the cover photo he looked like
Gareth Gates. ~ Sharon Mawer