Album Review: The 69 Cats - "Seven Year Itch"

 

Started up as a side project a decade or so ago by frontman Jyrki from Finnish goth/glam legends the 69 Eyes and guitarist Danny B Harvey (Lemmy's six stringer in his Headcat side project), the 69 Cats have been joined by Damned drummer Rat Scabies for this, their second album. A hell of a pedigree then, but can this album live up to it?

Pleased to report that the answer is yes - opener She's Hot kicks in with a winsome mix of Jyrki's Glenn Danzig-meets-Pete-Steele croon, Harvey's frenetic shredding guitar and Scabies' pounding drums and when it's followed by a superbly sinister cover of Post Malone's Hollywood's Bleeding, you know we're in safe hands here. You're The Kind Of Girl starts off as a mid-paced rocker before unexpectedly breaking into a full on psychobilly breakdown for the middle eight. Decent enough but it feels like a bit of a step down after that opening one-two. However, the spaghetti westernisms of Good Time To Die take the pace down a notch to good effect and get this one back on track.

Graveyard Blues, contrary to its title, has more of a New York Groove style glam strut to it before Hey World goes into more traditional rockabilly territory with Harvey taking over the vocals and the frenetic Psycho goes into full on Cramps style urgency before the sleazy Vampire Shuffle sees Jyrki breaking out his best Elvisisms to good effect. Teddy Boy Boogie packs the requisite amount of bug-eyed menace to its rockabilly grooves before they rework and retitle Hell Of The Mountain King (also covered by the Offspring earlier this year) into a groovy slice of goth-surf boogie leaving just the lurching I'm Evil and the frenetic It Ain't Enough to round this one off nicely.

I've seen a couple of reviews of this album slating it for being too derivative but I respectfully disagree - for me, this is a great shot of jet black adrenaline which wears its influences proudly on its sleeve but mixes them together to create a heady brew which'll appeal to greasers and goths alike. Slick back yer hair, dig out your mirrored shades, grab yerself a Bloody Mary and enjoy it for the fun that it is.

Bandcamp Link

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑 (8/10)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A brief return from the dead...

Image
  Yup, we're back. Don't all get excited at once. I’d been toying with the idea of doing an end of year list again this year and after a lot of umming and aahing eventually decided to go for it. As with last year, inevitably there were bumps along the way. As of the start of December, I thought this list would be around 40 albums but inevitably reading other people’s lists pointed me towards a bunch of stuff that had passed me by earlier in the year. Plus of course there’s always a few teasing buggers who put stuff out at the last possible moment. So 40 became 50 which became 60 which finally became 70. You lucky people. Actually though, reading through this list, the main thing that strikes me is that I think this might be the most musically varied end of year list that Nite Songs has ever done. From gentle acoustics through acclaimed indie veterans to punk thrash and good old fashioned scuzzy rock ‘n’ roll via some decidedly unexpected diversions (industrial folk music? Check...
Read more

Garbage Days Revisited #90: Soho Roses - "The Third And Final Insult" (1989)

Image
  "If you won't love me then I'll find someone who will!"  - Soho Roses  - So Alone The Soho Roses were a classic case of right band, wrong time. If they'd broken on to the scene in the last few years then they'd have had a ready made audience on the 21st century power pop scene and probably be regulars at Some Weird Sin and similar club nights in the Smoke. The reality? They broke through towards the tail end of the '80s and got lumped in with the dying embers of the Soho glam scene, leaving behind one sadly underappreciated album and a few EP's before self-combusting. In a way, I sort of see the Roses as a British version of Enuff Z'Nuff. Not so much in terms of their sound but more of the fact that they were a group crowbarred in with glam who weren't really a natural fit there and kind of paid the price for it - I've always thought Enuff Z'Nuff sounded more like a Britpop band with flashbomb guitars than a hair metal band. Oh sure, ...
Read more

Album Review: The Fades - "Night Terrors"

Image
  Hailing from South London, the Fades are gaining a reputation of one of the premier garage rock bands in the capital these days and, as with a few albums we've reviewed in these webpages of late, Night Terrors  was written during the lockdown as it was a recurring feature of life for the band's frontman Dave during the lockdown. As befits its title and subject matter, Night Terrors  is an off-kilter effort which might take a few listens to get into but rewards those who persevere with it. Certainly, the discordant vocals and guitars often give the impression of the whole operation being on the verge of collapse on the likes of The Pessimist  and Known It All Along  while Lost My Job  goes into XTC/Nightingales style post-punk territory. However, the likes of People In General  show that they can rein the weirdness in and build up an intriguing multi-part epic which starts off as tuneful new wave before drifting into a nightmarish state-of-the-nation ...
Read more