The Karma Effect's new album 'Promised Land' offers 10 tracks of raw, hip-shaking rock'n'roll positively gleaming with 80s keyboard shimmer throughout. Recorded at MRC Studios and The Hive Studios, both outside London, with Michael Charman, the album was built on escapism from start to finish. From the isolated 48-hour pre-production bootcamp that the band put themselves through to the album's key ambition: "When we were creating the album, it felt like we had found our own bubble of utopia - nothing in the outside world mattered in those moments. That's exactly what we want to offer anyone who takes the time to listen to the album," say the band.
Emerging from this generation's new found interest in all things rock'n'roll, London's The Karma Effect are instantly a head-turning proposition due to the timeless quality of their songs. Aside from the vocal pipes of Gottelier – which are surely the result of a hybrid experiment gone very right between Free's Paul Rodgers and Foreigner's Lou Gramm – The Karma Effect bring the glimmer of Seb Emmins' keyboard command, the insatiable rhythmic partnership between drummer Ash Powell and bassist Liam Quinn, plus the blues braiding of dual guitar work by lead guitarist Robbie Blake and Gottelier that holds a tone to make the Robinson brothers and their fellow Crowes weak at the knees.
"Take my hand and we'll make it to the promised land!" declares the choral refrain of The Karma Effect's title track, sung with the earth-stopping conviction that frontman Henry Gottelier's lungs are well accustomed to by now. And indeed, the band hope that the earth stops for each listener the moment that they press play on 'Promised Land'.
Although their eponymous debut album was recorded during lockdown, and so was before the band even had the chance to play live to an audience together, it provided the launchpad needed to make 'Promised Land' the glory-bound collection that it is. Making up for lost time, The Karma Effect played 11 festivals in 2023 alone, including Planet Rock Radio's Winter's End and Steelhouse Festival, as well as enjoying sold-out headline shows across the UK and tour slots with UK Top 10 artists like Massive Wagons and Scarlet Rebels, all the while formulating a colossal live sound. The result being that the band captured this lightning in a bottle for the set of highly impressive songs on 'Promised Land'.
Newly signed to the fast-rising independent record label Earache Records, specialising in the biggest and best new rock'n'roll acts globally, the band have found a perfect platform to progress: "What better sanctuary for our music than the label that's housed bands that are a huge influence to us: from Rival Sons to Goodbye June. We're ecstatic to be able to call Massive Wagons and Scarlet Rebels our labelmates too, as we've become fast friends with them out on the road."
