As 1995 turned into 1996, Oasis became unavoidable. You could not escape from their music, and they were everywhere. Because all the talk was of the Gallaghers, it annoyed me that other great bands of the Britpop era were just being treated like their poor relatives, so in 1996 I went and investigated the “other” groups of the time. Already very familiar with Pulp, Blur, Suede and Supergrass, it was through buying compilations of indie hits that I became a fan of bands like Sleeper, Dodgy and this lot, a four piece from London called Echobelly. Often considered by some to be like a female fronted version of The Smiths, their jangly guitars and intelligent lyrics earned them a number of hits, including this lovely helping of mysterious beauty from their ‘On’ album. During the 90’s, the Radio 1 Roadshows were still popular, and the ones hosted by Chris Evans attracted huge crowds. The whole thing peaked with a show at Weston Super Mare beach, where an audience of over 32,000 people (including myself) sang along to ‘Wonderwall’ as if it was the new national anthem, and jumped up and down in the sunshine to the sounds of Dodgy, Supergrass and even Sleeper, while being entertained by “live” performances from Skunk Anansie and Echobelly. Read more about that day HERE. It was the wonderful ‘Great Things’ that turned me on to Echobelly, and it was ‘King Of The Kerb’ that they “played” at the Roadshow, but the wondrous ‘Dark Therapy’ (which reached 20 in the singles chart) is a song from the era that doesn’t ever seem to get the recognition it deserves…
Following their fifth album ‘Gravity Pulls’, the band split in 2004. Core members Sonya Madden and Glenn Johansson returned in 2009 playing acoustic shows under the name Calm Of Zero. Since then, they have also done the same thing under the Echobelly name and released a a number of EPs.
