Saturday 22 December 2007

CATS AGAINST THE BOMB – ATTACK OF THE BUNNY BOILERS FROM THE NTH LAGOON (ADVANCED LAWNMOWER SIMULATOR)


CATS AGAINST THE BOMB – ATTACK OF THE BUNNY BOILERS FROM THE NTH LAGOON (ADVANCED LAWNMOWER SIMULATOR)

Opening awash with the sound of the seashore, the debut album of Ipswich’s Cats Against The Bomb soon lurches into something pulsating and special. Exhibiting and executing a fine usage of samples straight out of a Sci-Fi movie, this record has been a long time coming.

With vocals at times not sounding unlike a nitro-glycerine version of Wall Of Voodoo, over the course of twenty seven tracks Cats Against The Bomb deliver something of an alternative universe version of Big Black, a version where songs are about pirates instead of murder and delivered in the style of a science fiction writer crossed with a very electronic approach to rock, molesting accepted guitar conventions in the process.

It is relentless from the off as “Fluffy Yumi Critters” pulsates and pounds the listener’s head with machine drums clear as day and dark as night, as painful as that contradiction. Also being splattered with/in samples the whole affair is given the cinematic atmosphere that you suspect was the desire and intention from the album title and package in general.

The first real sense of euphoria comes with “Sesame Cake” as it sounds like the score to the most victorious of air raids on the enemy, a track that itself soon mutates into a John Carpenter-esqe electro romp on “It’s All In The Reflexes” that could well appear on Escape From Ipswich when Kurt Russell signs up to star in it. Nice vehicle.

Things fall together most successfully on “Woodshed” which is the stand out track in which the morphing of spiky guitars, headache drums and vocals sync very slickly.

The bonus of bastardised cover versions taste like chicken (especially the very Sigue Sigue Sputnik take on the Ramones). If Spaced made a record it might sound like this.

Were the band a question on Celebrity Jeopardy! it would be “feline pacifist” to which Sean Connery no doubt would remark “your mother doesn’t put up much of a struggle Trebek.”

Inch for inch one of the most solid releases you will hear from a band spewing its debut album.

Thesaurus moment: HD.

Cats Against The Bomb

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