- Label: 'Fifa Records (Forever In Financial Arrears)'
- Genre: 'Indie'
- Release Date: '12.11.21.'
Our Rating:
Animals is the latest album by Dublin based former Alphastates and Babelfish frontwoman Cat Dowling, the album was recorded in Kilkenny at Crossroads Studio, Cat co-produced the album with Gerry Horan and it's out on cd and limited-edition cassette on Forever In Financial Arrears (FIFA) Records.
Animals opens with some insistent acoustic guitar with sparse drumming and Cat's vocals kind of hushed and reverent as the strings come in and this gets more intoxicating as the band fully comes in to make this a rather rousing opener.
All That I Can Do has a gently insistent back beat that everything else works around as this tale of love and betrayal unfolds and is somewhere between Mary Lorson and Kirstin Hersh.
Trouble is a song about an incident in 1981 outside of Belfast in those troubled times, as I can still clearly remember which bombs I heard going off in 1981 in London, this certainly resonates with me as those events were certainly life changing for many of the people involved and especially the victims, this is a song of hope for the better times to come, while remembering just how comically tragic things sometimes were, here's hoping we never return to times like those.
Freedom asks some questions about the nature of Freedom and what that often-invoked word means to Cat, I hope she finds the freedom she seeks, this has nice double tracked vocals in place as well as some nice almost Spanish guitar style crescendos.
Bullets is a plea for all the fighting to stop and the bullets to remain in boxes unfired and nowhere near a gun, there is a sense of impending danger in the music as she tries to find a place of safety from all the gunfire.
I Wanna Dance doesn't sound designed for a Ceilidh or a rave this is more of a gentle slow acoustic led dance. The Fire is a tale of trying to decide to leave home or not set back in the 1940's with the worries of those times can he find the strength to leave home and go and do what must be done or not.
I Never Knew is a quite sparse song of memories of a former lover and what happened to them after the affair was over, wondering what happened to them or what might have happened if they were still as one.
In The Dark is a tale of survival and has a sense of hope that things might improve with a stirring backing as she pleads not to be let go.
Is This Love has a very late night feel to it, as your asking questions after a few glasses of wine too many, slow and deliberate and hoping against hope that her fears aren't made real and the Love she feels will be repaid as the almost angelic backing vocals become more rousing.
The album closes with Let Love Be a gentle acoustic song of love and hope with her vocals going all whispered Stina Nordenstam style in places against the acoustic guitar.
Find out more at https://catdowling.bandcamp.com/album/animals https://www.catdowlingmusic.com/ https://www.facebook.com/catdowlingmusic
