[Punk] EP: Cat On Form - A Blanket Over Your Eyes

[poprock]

[image=left]http://www.alternativenation.net/gallery/files/9/9/4/28118.jpg[/image]Good lord, this is a terrible record. The only redeeming feature I can find is that Cat On Form have split up, so this is their final release. A Blanket Over Your Eyes is an outpouring of hatred and vitriol, sure enough, but possibly towards their audience more than anything else.

From the standard post-rock setup of drum, bass, and twin guitars/vocals, Cat On Form manage to distill repetition and boredom into an art form. One chord repeatedly stabbing along with unintelligible screeched vocals is where they’re at, and on an initial hearing, it's not so bad. It promises to break into something interesting at any moment … but never does. Halfway through the first song, More Escapism, you start to realise that Cat On Form are going nowhere. The chorus is not coming. The melody is not coming either. This one stabbing chord is all they’re going to give. Sweet fucking Christ, is...

Click here to read the entire review

[metallideth]

woops either way, they aren't a local band.

[The Colossus]

I wan't to hear this before, now i really want to hear it.

[stevenansell]

hiya

so this isn't something i ususally do but someone pointed me towards this page and i thought id see what was being said....i was in cat on form, playing guitar and yelling. i thought i might try to shed some light on the record since there's some interesting stuff being said here...

firstly, yes we are/were from brighton. we played together for 2 and a half years and we did a couple of records and eps and toured all over the place. when we toured the states we found a lot of stuff there which was pretty depressing. personally i think the state of affairs we live under is bad enough anywhere, but it really was something seeing first hand the kind of world we're heading towards. we wrote and recorded that last record during the time, so it reflects our feelings from that. it was supposed to be our bleakest material (which might also explain why its very minimal in parts, although personally i don't believe it's very repetitive). yes it might be a bleak way to spend yr time but if it's a choice between trying to convey what i feel or trying to not sound bleak or miserable for other peoples' sake - i know what i'd rather do - be honest, just like the review says.

but i disagree that it's *totally* void of any suggestion of solutions to our problems, the last song mouths and minds has a refrain of "we are not powerless" and various lyrics throughout the record have suggestions of ways we can try to move forwards a little. not many of us have answers its true, but does that mean we aren't allowed to talk about what's wrong?

we made that record with every last drop of passion we had in our bodies, we were sad and angry and ever so slightly hopeful there were still some ways to challenge all this. if you didn't find that in our record then c'est la vie, i don't expect everyone to like us or understand us or even believe us.

so anyways, i hope this helps peeps understand it a little better even if you don't like it! and feel free to download stuff it's all over soulseek or on our website, at least you can decide for free whether you're interested in it.

thanks
steven x
www.catonform.co.uk

[Ghostsuit]

You know it's great to see a band member respond to an article in such a great fashion, the article kind of put me off listening to it but that response actually makes me interested. Nice one Steven.

[Kenny]

Aye, nice one mate, cheers for chipping in, it's good to hear it from the artist's perspective too. Back up a notch or two now, I think.

[poprock]

Originally Posted by stevenansell

we made that record with every last drop of passion we had in our bodies, we were sad and angry and ever so slightly hopeful there were still some ways to challenge all this. if you didn't find that in our record then c'est la vie, i don't expect everyone to like us or understand us or even believe us.

so anyways, i hope this helps peeps understand it a little better even if you don't like it!

Well said, there.

Reading the press release that came with the record, I did get a sense of what you guys were trying to acheive... and a sense of the passion and conviction you put towards that goal – but the record on it's own just didn't do that for me. Maybe including some of the background in your CD sleeve would have helped, I don't know... But I had to approach the music and packaging in it's own right, as a potential listener would – and on it's own, the music fell short in my opinion.

As Ghostsuit says, it's nice to hear your own response, and even nicer to see it being a reasoned and honest one. Thanks for taking the time.