Always behind the curve me. But then if my review pile of CD’s gets any bigger, I might just use them to build an extension on the house! Still, I got here in the end and, as expected, the new one from It’s Karma It’s Cool is a belter. It’s an album built on many contrasting sonic threads, from ambient understatements to shimmering power-pop, rock urges to ornate indie, and they all come together in a wonderful collision which is the It’s Karma It’s Cool sound.
After the gentle soundscaping of opener, Homesick, All Branches Break in Time kicks things up, a slow-burning build that results in a hazy and harmonious chorus and some slinky guitar moves and Absent Transient blends coiling yet concise riffs with more drifting backgrounds, a juxtaposition that is part of what makes their music so great.
Big Dream, Little Giant is a driving, grooving pop-rock piece, all swing and swagger, infectious, boogiesome beat and cool six-string licks, recent single She Slept With The Radio On is gentle and reflective and the album signs off as it started, with Future Destinations, a track forged of gorgeously ambient, cinematic moves which, this time, resolve in triumphant, sky-searing, life-affirming, fist-pumping crescendoes.
It’s Karma It’s Cool in general, and Homesick For Our Future Destinations, in particular, is a triumph of originality over fad and fashion. Proof, if proof were needed, that the problem with following zeitgeists and pandering to what the audience thinks they want, is a creative cul-de-sac at best. It is by taking, often, those same musical building blocks and rearranging them into new interesting sonic architecture that long-lasting and rewarding music is made. After all, you can’t go out of fashion if you were never in fashion, and I mean that in the kindest and most supportive sense of the words.
Also, if She Slept With The Radio On isn’t the most chart worthy song never to grace the charts, then I don’t know what is.
