Gomez

Gomez formed as a quintet from Britain whose lineup features Ben Ottewell on vocals and guitar alongside Tom Gray handling vocals, guitar and keyboards, Paul Blackburn contributing bass and guitar, Olly Peacock on drums, and Ian Ball supplying vocals, guitar and harmonica. At a moment when most rising British groups leaned toward retro-pop in the vein of Oasis, trip-hop à la Portishead, or space rock typified by the Verve and Radiohead, this Southport outfit stood out for its pronounced blues leanings. Their Virgin Records debut, Bring It On, drew acclaim from critics across the Atlantic and captured the Mercury Music Prize as 1998's Album of the Year, prevailing over strong contenders including Massive Attack's Mezzanine and the Verve's Urban Hymns.

The band launched its first American trek supporting Eagle-Eye Cherry in October 1998, just as reviews continued to celebrate the record—Spin, for instance, hailed Bring It On as “a damn beautiful album” and awarded it eight out of ten. Liquid Skin arrived the following year and earned platinum status in England, after which the rarities and B-sides collection Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline surfaced in 2000. Their third studio effort, In Our Gun, reached stores in spring 2002. Another extended break followed, during which Ian Ball moved to Los Angeles yet continued collaborating with the others at a fresh studio in Portslade, England. Dozens of tracks captured in that period were edited down into Split the Difference, issued in May 2004. By then Hut, the group’s original imprint, had folded, so Gomez remained attached to Virgin, Hut’s distributor. Even with widespread critical favor, sales never aligned with Virgin’s hopes, prompting the two parties to part company before year’s end.

Gomez joined ATO Records in 2005 and delivered Out West, its inaugural live album. How We Operate appeared in May 2006, and the musicians closed out the year by compiling Five Men in a Hut: Singles 1998-2004, a retrospective of singles, rarities and unreleased material. With members now scattered across separate continents, three years elapsed before the sixth studio album, A New Tide, whose parts were tracked separately by each musician and later assembled digitally. After its release Ben Ottewell pursued solo work, issuing his first substantial project apart from the band, Shapes & Shadows, in 2011. Several months afterward the group returned with Whatever's on Your Mind, produced jointly by the members and Phantom Planet’s Sam Farrar.