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
What
should we expect from Noel Gallagher? Apparently too much. Put simply ‘Chasing
Yesterday’ is a disappointment. There seems to be a changing in the tide and a
widening gap between artists and the music press. No longer do the newest
British bands feel in the shadow of Oasis and for all his whingeing about the
loss of the working class in Rock n’ Roll music, Noel is hardly the man to do
anything about it. This is in stark contrast to the music press. Rave reviews
of ‘Chasing Yesterday’ from well-established music magazines seem unfounded.
Maybe it’s because they haven’t filled their monthly ‘everything NG does is
amazing’ quota or because of the seemingly unwavering influence he still
possesses over the music press. It almost seems like it physically pains people
to criticise the ex-Oasis man. Why are people so scared to criticise his music?
Especially when it’s due.
Having
read up and listened to interviews with Mr. Gallagher, I already expected to
hear a trumpet or saxophone somewhere in the record. But even already knowing
this, it did not stop me spitting out my morning coffee. Why? Because it sounds
ridiculous. The introduction of jazz instruments is just not needed. A
perfect example of this is ‘Riverman’. A song that encapsulates all of NG’s
best work: catchy chorus, simple chord progressions and well thought out
melodic structures, ‘Riverman’ could have been ten times better. In hindsight,
maybe it would’ve been a wise decision for Noel to stop, take a breathe and say
“that’ll do” when penning the initial acoustic version. Instead, for some
ungodly reason, saxophones are present. Not only does this make the song twice
as long as it should be, but it cries out of a songwriter who has tried to do
something different in panic rather than creativity. This is a theme that runs
throughout the record. For once, it would be nice if I could listen to a Noel
Gallagher song that was under four minutes long. Seems like I’ll be waiting a
while for that.
This
is not to say that ‘Chasing Yesterday’ doesn’t have its moments. Highlights
include a collaboration with Johnny Marr on ‘The Ballad Of The Mighty I’ and
‘Lock All The Doors’, which was written way back in 1992. These songs are edgy,
brutal, powerful tracks which undoubtedly will have people comparing them to
earlier Oasis records. Also, no gaps between each track on the record makes it
sound like one rolling take on a tape. This is a nice touch as it allows
listeners to peek through the window of a studio session with Noel Gallagher's High
Flying Birds, metaphorically of course. However, sometimes the songs are so
similar that without directly looking at the song duration, there is little
indication of knowing when the album is going to finish. It says a lot that by
the latter half of the record, you are literally waiting for it to end.
If
you expected anything different from this record then you will be disappointed
but if you are happy to hear the same, formulaic, three chord songs that have
become a trademark of Gallagher’s then you will love ‘Chasing Yesterday’. It's not that the record is even that bad. It's actually OK, it's just that we’ve heard it
before. For all the bravado and outspoken comments about there being a lack of
guitar music in the industry anymore (interesting comments when bands like
Catfish and the Bottlemen are taking the industry by storm), ‘Chasing
Yesterday’ is a huge disappointment. However, there are moments of genius in
tracks like ‘In The Heat Of The Moment’, ‘Lock All The Doors’ and ‘The Ballad
Of The Mighty I’. If only the rest of the album had been anything like them.
