
Monster Cat
The Violet Hour
Monster Cat, eh? Here’s a solid indie rocker band with soulful lyrics, interesting arrangements and curiously silly, gag laden band member names. You’ve got Henti Cat on vocals and keys, Psycho Cat on guitar, and Meta Cat on Percussion. Why? Hopefully it’s just bad advice from an arty producer as these tunes quickly burrow into your brain. I feel no urge to throw flaming fur balls or transform into an erotic cat fetish monster, and I suppose this is a memory trick, it feels creepy.
But as to the sound, “Circling” floats us back to the folk sounds of ages ago, a simple acoustic guitar plays a minimal melody while one of these “Cats” (choking fur ball gag reflex) sings and chants a modest and quieting refrain, only to have the song soar just as it comes to a close. There’s more energy in the frenetic “Cradle,” here a female voice and some echo join up to plus up the energy. Rhythms are small and distant, yearning is in the lyric and we now hear, or rather we sense a master plan. The next track “Creature” holds the energy, and then releases it taking us down to a massive chill space in “Eat It Up.” There’s songwriting skill here, I love the sound space and the vocals, and I find the band names somehow amateurish.
http://www.monstercat.net; http://www.facebook.com/MONSTERCATBAND