By Jim Rowland
Back in the late ’90s, Milton Keynes rock band Supakarma looked like they had a bright future ahead of them. On the cusp of a big break, they were recording their debut album in a big name studio with a big name producer when it all fell apart during the sessions, and the band split acrimoniously. Following the untimely death of guitarist Jamie Paul Morris in 2019, the remaining members buried the hatchet and reconvened to finish off the album as a tribute, and so, very belatedly, the debut album from Supakarma has finally arrived.
After cutting their teeth on the London circuit and making their mark at select festivals, Supakarma found themselves at top-flight studio Great Linford Manor, which had played host to PJ Harvey, The Charlatans, PiL, and Skunk Anansie amongst others, with esteemed producer Tony Platt (AC/DC, Bob Marley and Sparks). Everything should have been magnificent, and very nearly was, until band friction during the recording process led to the session unravelling. Instead of the promised robust release, an acrimonious split left the project unfinished and gathering dust.
So the best part of 25 years later, the finished product sounds rather good, and not particularly dated at all. At various points across the album’s nine tracks you can hear the subtle influence of big acts from the time, like Radiohead, Suede, Muse and Oasis without the album sounding like some sort of 90’s retro reboot in any way.
‘The Way It Is’ and ‘What Are You Waiting For?’ are big, bold, epic sounding slices of alt-rock, cleverly fusing electronic sounds with the traditional guitar approach. ‘Demons’, ‘My Own Advice’ and ‘I Remember You’ take a more laid back, acoustic semi-ballad approach, whilst ‘Digital Vision’ and ‘You Could Be My Heroine’ crank up the guitars for two helpings of spikey, up tempo guitar rock. The eerie, downbeat electronics-infused ‘New Test Cannonball’ veers in the direction of Radiohead, whilst the soaring, atmospheric instrumental ‘Calmer Coaster’ has a definite flavour of The Cure to it. It’s a big sounding album, played well, and benefitting from some impressive, strong vocals from frontman Daniel Binks.
All in all, ‘Supakarma’ is a very decent album indeed, and listening back to it now, it’s very likely this band would have made some waves had they not had that big bust-up all those years ago. ‘Supakarma’ will be available as a strictly limited-edition vinyl release of just 300 copies and on all streaming platforms through Forte Distribution.