The year began with much excitement surrounding the group's plans for 2006. With a new album and tour, in addition to new releases to coincide with the group's 20th Anniversary, fans were understandably looking forward to an interesting time for the group.

Promotional and pre-release reviews for the new album suggested that the album would cater for all fans of The Wonder Stuff's musical styles, from the raw sound of The Eight Legged Groove Machine, to the folk/country-tinges of Hup and Never Loved Elvis yet still combined with some of the maturity  of Construction For The Modern Idiot. A number of tracks had already been previewed in acoustic format by Miles during his solo appearances during 2005 and digital radio listeners got their first chance to hear more when new single 'Blah Blah La Di Dah' was aired on BBC 6Music at the start of the year.

As the release of the new single approached, it was announced that the track would be available as a download-only track although promotional copies of the track were available as a physical CD medium.

On the day of the album's release, Miles, Malc and Erica were also booked to appear at the HMV record store in Birmingham City Centre where they would perform a number of new and old tracks before signing copies of their latest products.

 

Prior to the new releases, Miles exchanged his microphone for the producers chair when he agreed to help produce some of the new material recorded by Dolittle for release later in the year. Dolittle would also support The Wonder Stuff on their forthcoming tour in March.

A warm-up date for the tour, to be held at Cox's Yard in Stratford-Upon-Avon, was arranged for the end of February with the ever-popular Dharma Drive in support.

On the weekend before to the release of the first single from the album, Miles and Mark appeared on Gary Crowley's show on BBC Radio London as part of an hour-long show concentrating on the new material.

 

The middle of February saw the release of the long-awaited new album with Miles, Malc and Erica playing a total of six tracks acoustically at the HMV album launch -'It's Yer Money I'm After, Baby', 'Last Second Of The Minute', 'Blah Blah La-Di-Dah', 'Sun Goes Down On Manor Road', 'Circlesquare' and 'Mission Drive'. The performance was reportedly recorded by HMV for future release on the stores' website but this has never yet appeared.

 

Commercially, the album was a big success for the group charting highly in the independent charts and being promoted by many of the high-street stores such as Virgin and HMV. Indeed, demand outstripped availability in it's first week of release and the record company had to hastily arrange for more copies to be distributed. Whereas '...Rubbish Island' had largely (by his own admission) been a Miles Hunt solo album before the rest of the group had added their own parts, 'Suspended By Stars' was a full group effort with everyone contributing their own ideas. The result was a more complete sounding album which was promoted as being "their most definitive album to date."

Following on from the album's release came the UK tour which received rave reviews. Many people felt that the renewed vigour of the band made the concerts some of the best performances in the group's career. A mixture of tracks were played, although usually only one from 'Escape From Rubbish Island' for which reason Miles explained that they just didn't have enough time to play all of the tracks they would have liked to.

 

Celebrations of the group's 20th anniversary toured sour at the end of March. On April 3rd, only a few days after what would have been twenty years since the group first set foot on stage as The Wonder Stuff at JB's in Dudley, the music world was shocked by the announcement of the death of Martin Gilks. The news was originally made public by DJ Iain Baker on the XFM London radio station and quickly spread around the globe, showing how large a following Martin had.

Martin had been involved in a road accident whilst travelling on his motorcycle in London and subsequently died from his injuries. The anniversary celebrations turned to sorrow during the following days and weeks as friends, family and fans learned of the news.

Through their business website, Furtive Mass Transit Systems, Martin's brother Tank set up an a online book of condolences. Messages of tribute and condolences were also left on the Room 512 messageboard. As our own tiny tribute to Martin, fans and friends of Martin joined together one week later to simultaneously play one track that most people felt to be the true epitomy of his memory - 'Good Night Though'. The event was supported by a number of people from all corners of the world in addition to a number of radio stations - notably the Tom Robinson Show on BBC 6Music.