Album Evaluation
It’s Karma It’s Cool
One Million Suburban Sunsets
DL / streaming
Launched 24 October 2025
From Lincoln, fourth album from a band who burst the confines of the style they’re finest recognized for. It’s Karma It’s Cool at the moment are a correct modern rock band searching for an viewers who need huge anthemic tunes, stadium-sized angst that by some means lifts you out of a generational mid-life disaster. Ged Babey waves his lighter within the air.
There are usually not many bands like this I can actually say I actually-like… The Manics, Placebo, Muse (moderately) – the ‘area gig’ is just not my pure habitat, I a lot choose the small venue. Which is the place you’ll really discover It’s Karma It’s Cool, nevertheless it’s simply they sound prepared for large, open-air levels primarily based on this new album.
It was one tune that acquired me hooked. I wrote about it. ‘A Kick-ass English REM’. The earlier single was nice too. Then I found they’re considered one of my ‘web mate’ Barry’s favorite bands. Nothing higher than a private suggestion.
It’s Karma It’s Cool go for an enormous sound on this album, a ‘play loud’ rock and roll sound – BUT, on the similar time they’ve quiet, tuneful, melodic moments and phrases of knowledge to whisper in your ear. Melancholy and bombast. Tears and little victories. Adversity and anthems to punch the air to.
They aren’t a younger band, however they aren’t outdated geezers, that is them taking inventory and taking onboard the entire historical past of fashionable rock music from the 60’s to now. The benchmarks being (in all probability) the Beatles, the Byrds, Nirvana and Radiohead, through U2 and REM…(and extra) and making their very own music out of their assorted influences.
Their earlier albums fell into the Powerpop or Nation Rock umbrella which they felt constrained by.
Bands hate to be labelled and pigeonholed and I’m certain it’s Karma, it’s Cool aren’t any exception. It’s lazy journalism and a vital evil on the similar time. How are they gonna discover a wider viewers with some clues or signposts.
‘I suppose they sound a bit like The Killers – huge catchy songs’ the bloke down the pub would inform you.
However their sound is an retro combination of REM, the Bends-era Radiohead, soulful Massive Nation meets Manics kind rock with a splash of steel (guitar solo’s) and The Waterboys soul and tenderness.
It’s the constant high quality of the songwriting which is IKIC’s most important power and like all band the main focus is on the singer and Jim Styring does have an incredible distinctive voice. It’s mid-way between Feargal Sharkey and Michael Stipe by some means – with a little bit of Ian Broudie perhaps. It’s not a rock bellow or crushed gonad falsetto – only a voice that’s naturally heat and tuneful with out attempting too onerous.
Musically One Million Suburban Sunsets does go from loud to quiet and again once more on virtually each tune nevertheless it appears pure and creates a dramatic pressure and launch. Massive bombastic woah-oh-oh’s and full on guitar solos are there nevertheless it by no means appears like a bloated-cock-rock parody – extra like nice misplaced bands Whipping Boy and Into Paradise however that’s in all probability simply me.
A monitor known as ‘Swans‘ is the stand-out tune, by a nostril (or a beak) to my thoughts, though there isn’t a duff monitor on the album. It deserves to be an enormous hit on ‘drivetime’ radio – in the event that they didn’t solely play ‘hits’ from ‘throughout the many years’. It’s a type of mid-paced, lighters-aloft, catchy however unusually emotional songs that you simply get caught in your mind. I requested Jim about it.
I at all times depart {lyrics} open to interpretation. It’s extra vital what the listener believes than what I had in thoughts after I wrote them. Swans, nonetheless, is principally about by no means giving up on one thing that’s vital to you. These so known as ‘specialists’ telling us that rock and roll is lifeless and buried. So long as we, as people, have feelings, songwriters will proceed to put in writing, bands will proceed to type, our music will proceed to thrive. Principally, should you imagine in one thing , don’t let anybody put you down.
I keep in mind seeing, or studying one thing, concerning the Yangtze River in China being so polluted that the native dolphins have been thought to have died out. Years later when the large clear up began, they returned, seemingly from nowhere. That story simply caught with me, sort of like a metaphor for rock and roll.
Lastly it got here to me who IKIC remind me of – and oddly, it’s The Cranberries (however with a male vocalist clearly) – a a lot under-rated musical outfit from my (jaundiced hipster-punk) perspective who I solely succumbed to after my spouse performed them quite a bit within the automotive.
One Million Suburban Sunsets is ‘driving music’ in each senses of the phrase. It’s not radical nevertheless it is stuffed with coronary heart, soul and ambition and nice songs.
It’s Karma… are cool. That is their best hour. Give or take 10 minutes.
All phrases Ged Babey with PR content material in italics
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