Album review – Cats and Cats and Cats
Formed in 2005 Cats and Cats and Cats have been slowly building a fanbase for their unusual brand of slightly shambolic, very loose and rather shouty brand of folk pop. Think Neutral Milk Hotel fronted by the Cribs and you’ll get reasonably close to the sound of Cats and Cats and Cats. An enormous band, featuring tuba, cello, violin, accordion and chanting alongside guitars and drums, on paper this really shouldn’t work but on record, for the most part, it works remarkably well.
Lyrically as oddball as the sound, opening track ‘If I had Antlers’ features the mightily confusing ‘She was the dancehall than ran from you/you were the boy that slipped from view’; while ‘A Boy Called Haunts’ keeps up the nonsense with ‘in this kitchenette how I haunt you/while your eyes go dancing through the telescope’. If that’s not mad enough for you perhaps you’d prefer ‘Suizokukan Ni’, sung entirely in Japanese for your listening pleasure!
As I said it works for the most part, but it’s not perfect. Listening to this (and this is backed up by looking at some of their press pics) you can’t help but wonder if their trying a little too hard to be madcap. There is a bigger issue though – the way that some of the songs sway between folk and punk makes me wonder if the title is a little too apt – they certainly seem to lack direction. Having said that for a debut longplayer it’s a good effort and it should certainly put a smile on your face.
3/5
This review originally appeared in Artrocker magazine. www.artrocker.tv
