Labels: Miyagi Records
Review by: MH
Debut album here from a German outfit suffering from an extreme case of feline fixation. They are rather upset at what the wind-up robots did to their pet cat. So much so that they named the album after the mutilated, dead carcass – “Whiskers & Guts”. There are even cats on the cover and inside the CD leaflet. The music itself is some more-than-pleasant, twinkly post rock reminiscent of the likes of God Is An Astronaut. By post rock standards the track lengths are, in the main, shorter than your average track and there is less of a focus on crescendos than many of their peers. They don’t go for slow, brooding intros and it’s almost upbeat at times. On occasion, they are not afraid to rock out a bit either and the synthesizers add a very slight electronica feel to a couple of the tracks too. The strongest part of the album for me is the last two tracks where they let loose, cranking up the volumes and distortion for some more epic endings.
The main question I hear you ask though is, “is there any miaowing on the album”? Of course there is! The miaows appear courtesy of a synthesized voice reminiscent of that in the Radiohead track, “Fitter Happier”. It is these cat noises on the track “Minka” that resulted in roars of laughter from my friend Steve as this CD was getting an airing while we were painting my house this weekend. He nearly knocked the tin of paint over and painted a massive stripe across my window. However, his reaction shortly after was, “What is this anyway? This is awesome – is it out on vinyl? Do they have it on tabby coloured vinyl? I’ll buy it on every coloured vinyl they have!” Or words to that effect. My wife liked it too – said it sounds like “GCSE Explosions In The Sky”. This was a compliment.