So, the dust has now settled on what can be described, quite simply, as a mental summer for Catfish And The Bottlemen. Having played at every festival known to man, it only now seems a good idea to fully evaluate where the band are in terms of their standing within the music industry and just how well their debut album - 'The Balcony' - has been received.
Let's start with the record. What makes a perfect album? I challenge anyone reading this to define the perfect album. Is it a record where every single song is one that you want to sing along to as loudly as you can? Well this is what 'The Balcony' achieves. CATB's sound seems so fully formed that it's difficult to reconcile with the fact that 'The Balcony' is their debut recording. Its eleven tracks are filled with choruses made for stadium sing-alongs, walls of crunching guitar and the kind of lyrics that have the capacity to invoke memories and stories that will resonate with any teenager growing up in modern Britain. Tracks like Kathleen, Cocoon and Fallout demonstrate this perfectly, but quite honestly you could take any track on the album as an example.
OK, so 'The Balcony' is quite straightforward musically and hardly groundbreaking, with one music magazine in particular claiming that they are around '9 years too late'...whatever that means. CATB are a band that has mastered the art of writing tunes that connect with an audience, and all this at a time when commercial rock is supposedly at a low ebb. And what's wrong with a three-minute rock and roll song that gets mates on each other's shoulders at festivals, passionately screaming lyrics back at the band?
What's refreshing is actually seeing a young band full of ambition who aren't scared to admit they want to sell out arenas and stadiums but also understand where they are stand at this moment. CATB remind me a lot of a 2005/2006 Arctic Monkeys...and just look at what they went on to achieve. To any critics, I say give Catfish time. They are a hard-working band, still trying to find their feet in an industry that is frankly full of poppy, formulaic shit. CATB also have the ability to change people's opinions. This might be through the contagious nature of their music or the adorable, clumsy, energetic charisma of their front man, Van McCann. In NME's first article on CATB, they were so dismissive of 'The Balcony' that you wondered what the point was of reviewing the album in the first place. Skip forward less than 12 months and the band are on the front cover.
What does this tell you...? I'll leave that for you to decide. The Balcony - 8/10
