(Sub Pop) www.subpop.com
After trotting along to see this bunch a few weeks back before receiving the album I left wondering why all the hype in our oh so great NME ( they even got gig of the week in the upmarket broadsheet Independent ) - ok not Strokes or Vines levels true but the old bullshit detector was activated pretty quickly that night. Tho' I dug the guitarists ability to snap a string or two, replace the guitar & then promptly snap some of them too, during the same song & their impressively BIG sound there was a huge crater where songs normally reside. And I was left thinking how other Sub Poppers like Zen Guerrilla & The Murder City Devils (who do get a nice RIP mention on the inner sleeve of this album) missed this type of press that they deserve more. Altho' in The Caths defence maybes I wouldn't have been instantly enamoured of those two and others if I'd seen them before having my ears vacuumed out by their records. But I'm nothing if not a fair old guy so it's had repeated spins in the decks of digital delights at my ghastly gaff & there are some rewards to be had from the dark, claustrophobic atmosphere full of paranoia paranoia, confusion, alienation & self-doubt (self-loathing?) that they inhabit. (Check Bleary Haze's "Maybe I should wait for the day to come / before I disengage myself from everyone I know/ before I decide I don't need anyone" ). Intense & on edge the often impentrable clattering sees them flying close to the frayed borders of frazzlement... sluice gates opened, spewing & shrieking out ragged shards of twisted, mangled words... seemingly random scattershots of vitriol pointed as stalactites emitted from inside the labyrinthine lair wrapped in barbed wires of noise. I don't see much evidence of the much-vaunted Mudhoney comparisons either, they're pretty much at odds with them, making their own self-deprecating comments along the lines of "basically trying to sound as much like Mudhoney as possible" seem a tongue-in-cheek response to such simple comparisons. Like they know something else & don't care if you don't get it. The initial spurt is definitely the best, with the best two being I Fall Easy & Nothing ( "When I feel like shit, nothing fits like this" ) both of which are still clocking up mileage in my head. Great tunes almost matched by 3000 Ways The Door Shuts Quickly. The Stooges come crawling towards & the end in Clock on the Wall, & the Kick Out The jams riff, or variations of, is played in about three different tunes which might be a tad excessive. On the whole tho' this is pretty damn good, tho' cold & unlovable, and at times it seems as tho' they're screaming more out of searching for choruses than anger. But I've much appreciated it's angst & anger blasting it out upon arrival home from the day job & the hordes ringing up for my incompetent services & there are a few fucking corking tunes which is more than a lot of bands muster. - Stu Gibson