Always support your Support…

Occasional Albums Thing 074 - Wishplants “Coma”

Wishplants were the other band that supported The Wonder Stuff up in Scotland in August of 1992 (see Occasional Albums Thing 070). When they turned up at Aberdeen Music Hall for that first show I gotta admit Wishplants looked like a bunch of wide-eyed kids all thinking “whaaaat the fook is happening to us”. I’d never heard of them before they showed up for these shows. This album was produced by Wonder Stuff live sound engineer Simon Efemey who I think was also involved in managing them, maybe that’s how they got the gig ?

They released their debut single in February of 1993, the “Circus Rain” EP. Although “Circus Rain” is a track on this album, it’s not on the EP, the lead track was “Captain Marvel”, which was the reason I picked up this album. I did have the EP back in ‘93 but that went a long time ago. The version of “Captain Marvel” which opens up Side 2 here on the album is a good 2 minutes longer than the single, extended intro and all that, but it’s a prime example of that 1993 Indie sound as purveyed by the likes of Ride, Chapterhouse, Loop etc. Wishplants aren’t in anyway part of the shoegaze mob, producer Simon Efemey is too schooled in “The Rock” to allow that and singer Saul Denton isn’t nearly passive enough. But the music has that swirling-psychy feel to it that was the mode at the time. 

“Captain Marvel” is a great song but probably the best thing on the album. There’s a couple that get close, track 1 side 1’s “Tortoiseshell” and the final “Misery” (recorded live apparently) among them. Saul keeps the energy levels up vocally not letting the record slip into shoegazey dullness, Simon Efemey really does know haw to record guitars and Ed Gilmore’s scream and swoop around these tracks, there’s a soupçon of The Edge about some of Ed’s parts but not enough to put you off. 

Past 1993 I never ran across Wishplants again. They made a second album in 1996 which I’ve never heard and that was pretty much it. If you like that psychy thing that was going on in Indie world from around 1993 give “Captain Marvel” a listen below and who knows, it may just hook you in. It’s a creditable album but was never gonna set the world on fire.

Captain Marvel - https://youtu.be/pWNjimE-YQE?si=bC3B4QXM7isfQThh