We are currently experiencing issues uploading the images for T Shirt Month. It is frustrating because the articles have been written. The posts will go up when the image will upload and the problem is fixed. However, there are potential reviews in draft that have already had the album covers uploaded.
So I will concentrate on some of those until the image upload problem is fixed. Look out for them starting to appear tonight. Onwards and Upwards blah blah etc etc.
Here I am again, this time celebrating the return of Splitsville. When I started out with Anything Should Happen all those years ago, the focus was completely Retro, the exact opposite of what here does and so it looked backwards at what had been. I had spent the 90s immersed in the revitalisation of Power Pop and ASH took on that mantle initially. Many bands that were not around in 2007 were celebrated and introduced to a new set of listeners. One time, we talked and talked about our favourite Power Pop band and even revisited every album on John Borack's Best 200 Power Pop Albums. Splitsville came out top and rightly so. So the return of the Baltimore quartet on the acclaimed Big Stir label is really exciting and having heard the new album before its release next Friday, I had ever reason feel to feel so.
Many people will rightly point you to The Complete Pet Soul as their masterpiece, but I was enamoured before and after. I missed out on their debut, U.S.A. which was largely the introductory demos, but I was a massive fan of the two albums by The Greenberry Woods, the band that became Splitsville. But the follow up, 1997's Ultrasound, gripped me thoroughly and led to the third album, Repeater, an album that is a Power Pop classic and one of my favourite albums ever. The Complete Pet Soul was released in 2001 and is a wonderful listen. It mixed originals that blended the harmony and orchestration of Pet Sounds and the more stripped down Guitar Pop of Rubber Soul. In that Top 200 albums, it was 45th.
2003's Incorporated is another fine listen. It slowed things down a little, less up and at 'em, more thoughtful, allowing more space than the melodic riffathons that had largely defined their career thus far. Now over two decades later comes Mobtown, an album that builds on the strengths of the past, but feels more modern, more now and will fight for space with the next generation as an album that will define Guitar Pop Rock in 2025.As they have matured, it is now not all about Guitar Riffs, there is space for keyboards and roots. My two embeds are the two singles from the new album.
The back catalogue is available on CD fairly cheaply on Discogs. Hopefully, the success of Mobtown will make these albums available for all again. You can find out more about Splitsville on their website here. The new album can be pre-ordered on Bandcamp here and the Big Stir Records site here It is available on CD or as a download. You can listen to the new album in full on Friday 18 July, the release date. It will be reviewed here just after release.
The second post of T Shirt Month features Bailey, our Lurcher, modelling the It's Karma It's Cool attire. Bailey will be making an appearance or two throughout the month. It was in 2013 that I was introduced to main man Jim Styring in our Anything Should Happen days. He was behind the Pop Dogs and starting out with an EP that I loved and I was so taken with his enthusiasm, that I just wanted to help. As he had grown through various ventures, that enthusiasm has never wavered. It is hard to make any impact in the UK these days, but that doesn't stop Jim and the band has grown well in the USA, supported admirably by the Kool Kat label.
Via B-Leaguers in 2016 and The Ego Ritual in 2019, Jim eventually settled into the established quartet that is It's Karma It's Cool. The quartet consists of Styring, Martyn Berwick, Mikey Barraclough and Danny Krash. The debut, 2019's Hipsters And Aeroplanes has been followed by three more albums, Woke Up In Hollywood, Homesick For Our Future Generations and Thrift Store Troubadours. There has also been a departure from their Guitar led Pop Rock with a side project in Solitary Bee that have released three recent singles. The return of IKIC has been marked by a great single, Crashability, released in May.
Initially built on big choruses, unexpected riffs and a real lyrical adeptness, the band's career developed as did their sound. The Power Pop roots were not as obvious. Ventures into AOR, Modern Rock and Classic Rock revealed that there was far more to the quartet than initially met the eye and ears. Thrift Store Troubadours continued the diversity adding Psych, Glam Rock, West Coast Rock and generally the sound was even bigger. It is a tremendous album and maybe the best place to start for newcomers.
Styring has come a long way in 12 years and It's Karma It's Cool is a tight unit, not one man trying to find a path through the mire. Instrumentally, the development has been magnificent, but the strength is also in his vocals. He has an ability to sing Pop or Rock, easily adapting to whatever he sings. As is the case with all of this series of posts, I am choosing my favourite track by the band and the most current. IKIC are a band that have all the tools to break through considerably, they will need a bit of luck, but they certainly have the talent.
You can read all our reviews by searching the band's name on here and clicking on the tag. The complete back catalogue of the band can be listened to and bought here.
Here I am, looking my age, at the start of T Shirt Month on I Don't Hear A Single, a celebration of the upcoming 9th Anniversary of IDHAS next weekend. You will see a different T Shirt each day until the end of the month. We begin with one of my favourite bands who are now in their fourth decade. Unlike many bands from those beginnings, they are still around and releasing albums as good as, if not better than, their perceived heyday and that heyday was Britpop.
Britpop was the last scene that I was immersed in, Since then, it has been here there and everywhere and it wasn't the headliners that really moved me. Oasis and a great first album and a half and then became the sound of Coke. Blur were interesting, but you felt that Daman Albarn wanted desperately to be Andy Partridge. Ditto Brett Anderson with his Bowie fascination with Bernard Butler as his Mick Ronson. I had a lot of time for Pulp, but it was away from the noise that the better stuff resided. Guitar Pop bands that concentrated on the Pop that were the most interesting and still are. The Supernaturals were the best of these, run close by the likes of Dodgy and other bands such as Straw and Octopus that we celebrated on Anything Should Happen.
Since reforming in 2015, the band have released four superb albums that don't rest on their past, but are every bit as good as those glorious Brit Pop days. Their current album, Show Tunes is as good as they've ever been and they are currently working on their next opus. Reviews are aplenty on here of all stages of their catalogue. Not only did the band remain relevant in the now, but they also caressed their past. Releasing the tapes of their pre major label days that were as easy to get hold of as record horse droppings. As well as bringing them to CD and download. The big albums were also released with loads of bonus tracks and you realised that these songs were as good as anything that you had previously heard.
Although many outsiders will know them as a singles band due largely to Smile, the quality throughout their career is unrivalled. Never afraid to take chances, but never forgetting about how strong the chorus is meant to be. I was also delighted to see the addition of Joe Greatorex to the band, an artist I had followed throughout his career. His band, Colin's Godson, remain one of my obsessions, the most underrated band ever who made their releases unique with the artwork and extras.
The band's discography remains fully available on Bandcamp. If you haven't been there, you are in for a treat. It Doesn't Matter Anymore and Show Tunes have also been released on Vinyl recently. Embedding wise, I have gone for my favourite song by them showing them live on Scottish TV and my favourite on the latest album.There is no better band to start off T Shirt Month. Look out for tomorrow's guest and I will try to look younger.
You can listen to and buy the albums here. You can also buy T Shirts there. The two Vinyl releases can be bought here.
