CD Reviews

Cat's Eyes | Cat's Eyes

Polydor (2011)

By DANIEL BROCKMAN | June 7, 2011

3.5 Stars

It is a generally agreed upon truth that the best pop music occupies the small Venn-diagram overlap between the sacred and the profane, the itty bitty piece of real estate where our secret subconscious gets confused between which feelings belong to the Lord and those that reside Below. Few modern long-players understand this as innately as this unlikely debut from the duo comprising Faris Badwan, the mopey vocalist for the Horrors, and Canadian opera singer Rachel Zeffira. The result of their intersecting aesthetics is a Cat's Eyes album that meshes pre-rock girl-group songcraft and church-y reverie with more than a hint of menacing '60s film paranoia. "Bandit" turns a typical "he stole my heart" diatribe into a satanic choir hymn to a Man with No Name, whereas "Best Person I Know" and "Face in the Crowd" take Ed Sullivan shimmy and toss it down a lonely hallway to oblivion. Throughout, delicate orchestration and billowy organ work combine with a drastic sense of reverb-ed distance, making the whole thing sound like a tiny B&W set that is blaring a Sam Fuller flick from across the rows of a cavernous cathedral. Whether telegraphing heartbreak, world-weariness, or menacing intent (the latter especially on the Psycho-meets-Bad-Seeds nightmare of "Sooner or Later"), Badwan and Zeffira excel at heightening their musical senses simultaneously to the graces of the Heavens and the billowy depths of Hades.

Little Dragon | Ritual Union
On Ritual Union, the third full-length from these mechanical soul weirdos, Little Dragon have managed to get way catchier and also a great deal stranger.
Ash Borer | Ash Borer
NorCal black-metal trio Ash Borer's debut full-length is as diminutive as their namesake (limited to a 150-cassette run) but no less destructive or striking as they hurtle through three tracks in 40 minutes.
Active Child | You Are All I See
Pat Grossi used to be a choirboy, which is not surprising at all, given that his full-length debut under the Active Child moniker sounds like it was cut in some sort of dimly lit, hallowed hall under the cover of night.
Paul Lieberman's Brazilian accent
How did a middle-class Jewish kid from New Jersey become a first-call session musician in Rio de Janeiro?
The Big Hurt: Pablo Dylan's 10 Minutes
Bob Dylan's 16-year-old grandson, Pablo Dylan, just dropped 10 Minutes , his first rap mixtape.
The Big Pink | Future This
The Big Pink's name is forgettable and their sound is too generic to describe. Sneering electronic dance-rock heavy on synths and slowed-down '90s rave beats? They might as well be the Klaxons.
Alex Chilton | Free Again: The ''1970'' Sessions
Post–Box Tops and pre-Big Star, Alex Chilton was an 18-year-old Memphis boy on his way to his dual identity: former #1 pop hitmaker, perpetual underground hero.
Cardinal | Hymns
After a nearly two-decade silence, chamber-pop duo Cardinal emerge from their near-mythic hibernation with the sleepy-eyed, Beatles-underwater gem "Northern Soul," which crawls out of the speakers as if to say, "Yeah, we've been gone since 1994 — but really, don't mind us!"
Snow Patrol | Fallen Empires
Word on the street had Snow Patrol looking to change up the big anthem sound for their sixth release.
O'Brother | Garden Window
O'Brother's bio for their debut album, Garden Window, reads in part: "Native American tradition believed taking a picture of someone also took a piece of their soul. O'Brother views this album in the same vein. It captures a piece of them at a time in their lives that they will never get back."
Guided by Voices | Let's Go Eat the Factory
The GBV name on Let's Go Eat the Factory' s label indicates two things to those fans: this is the first record to feature the "classic" Bee Thousand/Alien Lanes line-up since 1996, and this is the first Pollard album to deserve the GBV moniker since the break-up.
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