OR   Search for Artist/Title    Advanced Search
 
you are not logged in...  [login] 
All Reviews    Edit This Review     
Review: 'It's Karma It's Cool'
'Woke Up In Hollywood'   

-  Label: 'Kool Kat Musik/Bandcamp'
-  Genre: 'Indie' -  Release Date: '16.6.20.'-  Catalogue No: 'PURR2146'

Our Rating:
The liner notes for this Cd claim that this album is a Top Tender, Meaning, that it should be a contender for my top ten albums of the year. Well as PR claims go this month it's a whole lot more accurate than the Press release claiming, that the re-issues coming at the end of August, are for the best albums Dave Crosby has ever put out, this claim at least has a chance of being true. My cd came with a very cool It's Karma It's Cool t-shirt that is part of one of the packages this album comes with.

The album opens with Our Love Is An Amplifier that's a really nice power pop indie love song with some interesting keyboard sounds and good lyrics as the concept of Love needing to be shouted at top volume through some Marshall or Vox cabs is a good one for sure. It is also damn catchy like much of this album so that by the time you've heard it two or three times it will be stuck in your head and that's a good thing for sure.

Bubblegum Monsters makes me think of The Rubinoos more than the Archies end of Bubblegum pop, this has some well-placed handclaps and some good claims that they are sonic defenders and they don't mean headphones.

Back in '78 isn't the best song about that year but it's still a very good one and although it does miss certain key events like the world cup final it does give a nice run through events in the life of various Karmic wanderers as certainly England felt like it was on the brink of some major catastrophe or other, this however feels nicely upbeat as if they really will find that love they are chasing.

Woke Up In Hollywood is a fine single and evocation of the hold Hollywood has over many of us this is a sun dappled slice of Indie pop that while evoking Hollywood's golden age still has a good feel to it as you wonder who it is they Woke up In Hollywood beside. It sounds ready to be played endlessly on the radio too.

They then go fully karmic on Wooden Buddha a gently psychedelic slice of summer pop that's a bit slower and has a cool breakdown in the middle section as you wonder what you have in common with that Wooden Buddha, even if hearing a band claim they are The Rollers evokes tartan tinged 70's memories, this would have been at the sophisticated end of The Bay City Rollers oeuvre.

The Girl Who Gave You Everything almost sounds like a song in tribute to the girl who took their virginity and how she bewitched them, this has a slightly more folksy edge to it, especially on the acoustic guitar parts that I assume are special guest Lannie Flowers contribution, either way a nice song that gives me a wry smile and a wink.

American Sushi is a wonderfully wry song about going to Japan and eating American Sushi, no they don't go on and on about the best California rolls ever but Danny Krash does his best on the percussion to sound as if he's hitting his cymbals with his chopsticks it also has some cool harmony vocals and is a lot of fun.

New Age Eve takes a ska rhythm to sing a powerpop indie song as they hope we really can get to a New Age that's a lot more positive than the New age we seemed to have stumbled into, with I guess Martin Bewick, playing the very cool trumpet parts.

Healer's leap is a cool sixties inflected song for lover's blissful leap with harmonica that sounds Dylanesque even if nothing else on the song does.

Ghost Of Rome reminds me of the sort of song Danny Wilson used to sing and Jim Styring's vocals really try to get us to come down from that tower as the story at the songs heart unfolds as the guitar rings nicely.

Battle Of Burnt Out Bliss is a slow building love epic with a cool string arrangement as they sort of go a bit Burt Bacharach chamber pop this has so much going on a wonderous requiem to a relationship that is no more or almost no more.

The Album closes with Sunflowers that sounds like some fine early 90's shoegaze pop like say Family Gotown, it's not as effects drenched, but it has that sort of slightly blissed out feel to it.

Find out more at http://shop.koolkatmusik.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=KKM&Product_Code=Its_Karma_Its_Cool_1&Category_Code= https://www.facebook.com/itskarmaitscool/ https://itskarmaitscool.bandcamp.com/album/woke-up-in-hollywood
  author: simonovitch

[Show all reviews for this Artist]

READERS COMMENTS    10 comments still available (max 10)    [Click here to add your own comments]

There are currently no comments...
----------