Album Review: X-Ray Cat Trio - "Haunted"

 

Hailing from Leeds, X-Ray Cat Trio are something of an oddity. They'd probably have gone down a storm at the Urban Voodoo Machine's Gypsy Hotel club in London back in the day with a mix of rockabilly, country and punk stylings all chucked into the broth at random to come up with something which, if nothing else, is certainly pretty unique.

I'm happy to say that it makes for a pretty enjoyable half hour as well. The lurching rockabilly of the opening track Haunted Man gets this one off to a good start while the likes of Strange Times At Roswell High and Ouija Board Waltz show a bit of a Cramps influence lurking in there while Hotel Metropole is part greaser rock and part psychobilly screamfest, similar to groups like the Dead Beats and Stop Talking is a Ghost Riders In The Sky style goth-country twangfest.

It's not all plain sailing - a couple of the tracks like Cry Baby Don't Like It and True Love don't really connect the way they could but overall there's more good than bad here and with the group featuring fiddles, pedal steel and sax in various songs, you could never accuse them of playing it safe. A rough aroud the edges gem when all's said and done but there's plenty of evidence here to suggest that with a wee bit of refinement, the X-Ray Cat Trio could definitely be a band well worth looking out for.

Bandcamp Link

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑🌑 (7/10)

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