The Bishop's Daredevil Stunt Club - Vanishing Point EP

 

It is fairly well known that here at I Don't Hear A Single, we avoid seasonal songs. The forced jollity of Christmas Songs, the I love You, Yes I Do, You Know Its True of Valentine's Day and the scary noises of Halloween are not for us.

The intent of IDHAS is for the older reviews to get attention and we use the likes of Google Analytics to make every effort to achieve that. There is something pleasurable to see something that was written a few years ago getting additional attention. So what's the point of covering things that have a week a year shelf life?

However, we make an exception with this on the basis that it is more Rocktober than Halloween and we do love The Bishop's Daredevil Stunt Club. They follow up July's excellent Please Stand By with an EP of four songs with a Horror B Movie Theme. The songs do stand up well on their own, very well actually.

TBDSC have always been at the rockier end of Power Pop and Vanishing Point is certainly that. Riffs at times hit you like Rush riffs, harmonies head towards AOR and they are not frightened by Fuzz, they define Pop Rock.

The opener, Every Night I'm Dying is an absolute stormer, it may just be one of their best songs and that bar is high. Killer Trans Am is all noise and fuzz without ever losing the hooks. Why You Ghosting Me Girl? is more classic 70s Pop Rock and again the Chorus riff just grabs you. Slower than the two previous songs but just as effective. 

Nightfall On Doomsday is where the Power Pop explodes out, a cracking slab of New Wave that rounds of a splendid EP. I can think of few who mine this territory and none as well. The Chicago quartet are masters at what they do.

You can listen to and buy the album here. 

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I Don't Hear A Single Albums Of The Year 2019 : 11 - 20

It's been difficult to get these choices down to 100. I'm also not a believer in saying one album is better than another. Most of the time you are comparing Apples To Oranges. I'm not a List person, I just think what's the point.

However, for the last couple of years I have compiled Best Of 2019, normally I just said what my favourite album of the year is. I've done it again, because these posts seem so popular and the aim of this Blog is to get exposure (and Sales) for the artists.

There is no meaning or judgement on an album that is Number 1, Number 100 or not on the list. Anything that I review on here, mention on Social Media or play on the Radio Show is as highly recommended.

I would also add that the Top 100 includes albums available as Download Only. To suggest that they are anything less than equal to a Physical release is patently nonsense and omits many wonderful albums.

I will compile a Top 20 of Reissues and Compilations combined after all this is complete. For each album, I've posted a song from it and a link to the review, where you can find further details on how to listen or buy the album.



11 Andy Bopp - Maker       IDHAS Review










12 Lannie Flowers - Home       IDHAS Review

13 Mounties - Heavy Meta       IDHAS Review

14 Empty City Squares - 337       IDHAS Review








15 Daystar - The Complete Recordings       IDHAS Review








16 The Bobbleheads - Myths And Fables       Review







17 Project: Ghost Outfit - Project: Ghost Outfit       IDHAS Review

18 Scott Gagner - Hummingbird Heart       IDHAS Review








19 The Bishop's Daredevil Stunt Club - End Over End       IDHAS Review







20 The Mommyheads - Future You       IDHAS Review










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The Bishop's Daredevil Stunt Club - End Over End

Chicago's The Bishop's Daredevil Stunt Club have been going for around a decade now and if there is a centre of the mind circle that denotes the I Don't Hear A Single world, they'd be around it. I won't go into those boring Best Album yet quotes, but End Over End Excels.

Anything from the band's back catalogue does the trick, but the new album takes on far more than previous albums have. There's a danger of confusion when a band goes for variety, but there's no danger of that here, because the influences aren't the everyday Pop Rock ones.

I've already played the infectious Get Up Get Up on the IDHAS Audio Spectacular and that's amongst the opening four killer songs that set the tone here. Starpower is definitely in The Feeling's first album territory, The Henry Norman Hotel is City Boy before Mutt Lange decided that the drummer was the singer and Delusional Love is Vegas With Randolph without the Social Conscience.

Here Is Today is great mid 70's Pop Rock with a seemingly Pilot type riff trying to get out. Cupid You Lose is very Chris Church, Christine Your Mean has a Who like riff to it  Lifeguard should be on the Not Lame label and Burndown At Sundown is built around a sort of Black Sabbath like riff.

There's no drop of tempo across all ten songs. Hook follows Hook, but it's far more than traditional Power Pop. The arrangements are thought out, the production top notch, this is everything that you could ever want from a Pop Rock album. Totally Outstanding!

I'll add some songs here as they become available. In the meantime, you can buy the album everywhere and listen to it on the likes of Spotify.

The Bishop's Daredevil Stunt Club - Don't Buy This Record

Bands have released individual songs throughout the year regularly, particularly in these Bandcamp days. The Bishop's Daredevil Stunt Club took this a few steps further. They decided to record produce and release one new song per month until the latest album was complete.

Each song was made available as a free download and the resultant album is now complete and again available as a Free Download. This may be a fairly unique strategy but the result is a really cohesive offering from the Five Piece Chicago Outfit.





The vibe is Angular Power Pop set somewhere between the late 70's to mid 80's. Miscast has as many words in it as a Bates Motel era Sparks song, Rare Bird has a great Psych Pop keyboard riff that breaks into Funk.

The opener, Have You Met You is a ringer for The Darkness, yet Just Drive could be A Flock Of Seagulls.  Upstairs should be something on the Creation label. Succumb To Your Blues is in BMX Bandits or Postcard territory. What's It To You could be Fiction Factory.






The Woman Who Got Old takes me back to sweaty Northern clubs in the early 90's, great twee pop. The whole album is a pleasure to listen to and very much like the Lemmo album, it's the sort of album that you don't hear these days.


The album is not following any current trends and that makes this even more listenable to me. I get sent a whole lot of stuff and you probably can guess that it follows one of three patterns, lots of it done badly. So when you hear an album that grabs your attention, you should tell everyone, because there aren't too many around. What's more this costs the sum total of 0 pence.





You can listen to and download the album FREE here. The Bishop's Daredevil Stunt Club are also playing at the upcoming IPO Chicago Bash (sic) on 23 April. You can see the full Chicago schedule here.