So here we are in that lull after my birthday and between Xmas and New Year and as my family know what I like the next few blog entries will be out of alphabetical order new additions to my collection that have been kindly gifted to me over the past couple of weeks. Your normal scheduled programming will resume with the letter N in a few days time, by which time this will have become the 2024 Albums Thing.

The Jolt were a 3 piece New Wave band from the satellite towns around Glasgow, formed in 1976. They wore 60’s style matching suits, covered the Small Faces, were signed to Polydor Records and the And Son publishing company (for those that don’t know that was the publishing company run by John and Paul Weller)…beginning to see why I liked them yet ?

They were a curious mixture of Punk and Mod Revival. “Decoyed” and “All I Can Do” bear the unmistakable stamp of Punk whereas “I’m Leaving”, “(Can’t You Tell) It’s Over” and the Small Faces “Whatcha Gonna Do About It” point squarely at the Mod Revival. That may well be why they never really got any further than support slots for The Jam, they didn’t really know what they were. This album is a real facsimile of a sixties album release with flip backs on the rear of the sleeve and an inner sleeve mimicking the Parlophone rice paper inners on early Beatles albums but with The Jolt’s name on them so they seemed to have an eye set on the revival.

The Jolt are probably best known for a cover of The Jam’s “See Saw” on a later EP, a song that appeared as the B-side of “The Eton Rifles”, so Weller was still trying to help them out. It never happened for The Jolt, on their own terms or as part of the Mod Revival, but it’s an album I have a soft spot for and reminds me of a time long gone, when we were young…whoa oh oh…I’m happy to have it back in my collection.

Decoyed- https://youtu.be/3hBIFeuerUs?si=8vc16vBNMUqmJL1c