Word: catatonia
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...Because Catatonia certainly isn't trying to break new ground. They just want to break onto the scene. The sounds are competent but basic, and, in a reassuring (unchallenging) sort of way, don't go where you have never been before. The guitars crash along like a sandy syrup, and the rhythms are just enough to give me a silly grin to accompany my mindless bouncing. At the end of the album, however, my endorphins know that this could be a pleasant, but will never be a long-lived, relationship...
...fact, the story of Catatonia since their conception in 1992 has been one of almost-embarrassing mediocrity. If I had passed lead vocalist Cerys Lewis on the streets busking covers of Jefferson Airplane songs (you know, if I was living in Cardiff and shopping at Debenhams in 1992), I might have thought that the girl had something going. But I wouldn't have given her my bus fare...
Guitarist and other vocalist Mark Roberts thought better, and so started a band with Lewis. Catatonia went on to take Owen Powell on guitar, Paul Jones on bass, an Aled Richards on drums, all of whom are Cardiff cads save the last, who is a Llanelli lad. Their first album Way Beyond Blue came out in 1996 to high praise from critics, but entered the charts as 40. And stayed there. The same year, they re-released their most renowned underground record Bleed, which did not even chart in the top 40. 1997 saw the single...
Finally, early this year, Mulder and Scully, by far Catatonia's most well-known and popular song (with no little credit to the cunningly-penned name), strode into the UK charts at three. International Velvet was then released to scramble into the charts at 11, subsequently moving to three. And that explains why Catatonia were finally picked up by American label Neil Young's Vapor. Potential moolah, not amazing artistry...
...must be fair and say that Catatonia still has that kick that so many American groups have lost these days: they make happy-making music. They sing "I put horse's heads in people's beds/Cause I am the mob" with perfect bubbliness. Mulder and Scully, Road Rage and Johnny Come Lately are just plain fun and catchy. Don't Need the Sunshine is, for lack of a better description, nicely undemanding. It's definitely sing-along material. Other songs are just forgettable...