iSOLA
Don't Walk, Run (Aberdeen)
by Marc Hirsh

originally published in Space City Rock, Summer 2004

Boy, Radiohead sure did a number on an entire generation of young bands, didn’t they? I mean, for every group like Coldplay that takes the dramatic-but-not-overly-aggressive-guitar-pop-with-plaintive-vocals formula and does something interesting and original with it, there are dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of bands like iSOLA just plugging away with diminishing returns. “Medic,” the first song on iSOLA’s debut CD Don’t Walk, Run, crams in as many ideas from OK Computer as they can fit, from “Airbag” to “Paranoid Android” to “Electioneering.” It’s like they’re trying to play the whole album in one song, something they try again five songs later with “Emma” (which keeps “Airbag” but swaps in “Karma Police” and “The Tourist”). That’s followed by two pointlessly unlisted tracks, one of which sounds like it wants to be “Marquee Moon” for the post-Kid A generation. I can’t figure out why iSOLA, and half of Indie Nation, think it’s a good idea to a) tell us the names of some but not all of their songs and b) put two large blocks of silence on their CD. I mean, what would Radiohead do?

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