Friday, February 1, 2013

CD Review: Fractal Cat's 'The Eye In The Dawn'

Fractal Cat
The Eye In The Dawn
Self-Release

Fractal Cat is a Baltimore-based band that uses psychedelic melodies and rock structures with angelic male vocals to create a spacious, trippy, and rocked-out recording of pure musical pleasure. The poetic lyrics and extended rock outros are characteristics of jam music from the 1960’s and 70’s. However, you better shed your bell-bottoms and corduroy, because these guys are here in the present era. The real charm of the music is the vocal arrangements by Keith Jones and Miles Gannett. There are groovy bass lines, synth embellishments, sparkling harp sounds, and ambulating guitars. “Home” contains soft and loud moments, but the vocals are never over-used or beyond the natural vocal ranges. The end of the song contains a wicked bass, guitar, and percussion outro. “Foxfire” is an up-tempo song with more electric guitar spunk than the previous track. “Some Angel” opens with a dreamy harp and acoustic guitar that melds into a percussion-rich, folksy ballad seemingly coming out of the 1970’s pop scene. The short song is one of the best songs composed in any genre or era—bar none. The harp medley mid-song is a great homage to throwback folk music. “Autumnal Days” contains a beautiful instrumental set-up with choppy guitars, great horn sounds, and a jaunty rhythm with vocals akin to The Gufs. In a similar manner, “Little By Little” contains great guitar riffs, vocals, and more structured chorus with guitar work resembling Oasis. The psychedelic blurbs and electronic tonal qualities are evident on “Nightshade” and “The Calling.” These two tracks could be slightly influenced by the electronic band, Air. At any rate, fans of contemporary psychedelic rock and pop with some electronic and folk wanderings should check out Fractal Cat today! Get Fractal(led)—I did! ~ Matthew Forss  

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