Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
There is a significant anniversary due, one that really changed the way Liverpool thought about its four favourite sons, in the way perhaps the British music was thought of, and as bands such Pink Floyd, who would emerge from the studio with the debut album later that summer, The Who, the epitome at the time of Mod culture would soon release the Rock Opera Tommy and arguably one of the most underrated bands of the time, The Small Faces, begun their journey that would lead to the beguiling Odgen’s Nut Gone Flake.
The beauty of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band has resonated across the last 50 years and it’s concept of the story, arguably one of the best Progressive albums of its like, has long since been admired and its humour, its pathos and introverted sadness have been copied for ever; it is perhaps a sign that Rob Clarke and The Wooltones have taken notice of, even unconsciously, as they have produced a series of excellent songs that truly capture the Merseyside, the Liverpool pride in the smile, the strongest sentiments and the most honest of expressions but one with a cheeky smile attached. This feeling is exemplified in their latest single Jump In My Igloo.
The popular has a habit of changing quickly, what is gone soon dissolves in memory and yet some bands retain their popular appeal because they truly expose their smile to the world, there is no sense of the fake or the counterfeit in their work, what they offer is a very cool song which grips the soul, not out of fear or even memory, but out of longing and it is one that Rob Clarke and The Wooltones are always happy to indulge in, and always happily frame the moment of.
Jump In My Igloo is no different, a song of joy but one that has deep questions of perhaps how we glean the idea of cohabitation, of how domestic bliss can be achieved and certainly how we view others in their living arrangements; if someone wishes to live in such a manner do we truly have the right to question their motives, such is life, such is the power of the great pop song to capture the idea.
Once more Rob Clarke and The Wooltones have pulled an ace out of the pack and allowed the sentiment and expression of the smile to be infectious; an indisputable and authentic reason to love the band.
Ian D. Hall