APPROACHING THE AGE OF FIVE (Part 25)

All this month has been about looking back and talking mostly about singers/bands/performers that are well known.  Today, in the last of the series, I want to look at my one of my favourite discoveries of the past 5 years and I band who I hope will soon get the fame and fortune their songs deserve.

It was July 2009 when I first became aware of Cats On Fire.  I had been tipped off by Dougie, a golfing mate of mine who in turn was a mate of Basil Pieroni the guitarist in Butcher Boy.  Cats on Fire were coming over from Finland to play at Indietracks and Basil had arranged a warm-up gig for them at the Flying Duck in Glasgow.

I toddled along to the gig in the company of Comrade Colin.  It's fair to say that we were both completely blown away by the performance that night.  I immediately bought copies of the band's two CDs  - The Province Complains which dated back to 2007 and Our Temperance Movement which was at the time only available in their native Finland or direct from the band at shows (it has since had a wider release). They have been constant companions on the i-pod ever since.....

Cats On Fire were formed in 2001.  At the heart of the band is vocalist and main songwriter Mattias Bjorkas.  At the moment, according to this official site, they are a three-piece with Ville Hopponen on guitar and Kenneth Hoglund on bass.  When I caught them live in 2009 they were a five-piece, so I'm guessing they are on the look-out for a drummer and someone to play keys.  Despite this they have been in the studio over the summer months which means new material is hopefully going to appear in 2012.....and maybe if we're really lucky another gig in these parts.

Despite being around for a decade the band have only officially 3 released EPs as well as the afore-mentioned 2 LPs, along with a one-off digital single and then in 2010 a compilation LP which brought together all the tracks on the now near-impossible to find EPs as well as a few other odds'n'sods.  So not much more than 40 songs in total...

The thing is.....just about everyone of them is an absolute belter.

Cats On Fire are the perfect indie-pop band.  They have a front man full of charisma and talent with a superb voice, but all the band members are exceptional players.  They are a cross between The Smiths, Friends Again, Trashcan Sinatras, The Cure (pop song Cure that is, not gothic Bob), Belle & Sebastian, Butcher Boy,  The Go-Betweens and the Sound of Young Scotland that was Postcard Records.  Oh and loads of bands on Sarah Records as I'm now discovering thanks to Comrade Colin's brilliant Sunday series.

I don't care if anyone turns round and says there's nothing much original about them and that the tunes are a re-hash of what was stylish for a short while in the 80s.  What I hope TVV has shown over the past 5 years is that the 80s had so much more great music to offer than the songs that sold in the millions and made the charts.  Cats on Fire take absolutely everything I love most about music - great guitar-led tunes with a hook that grabs you instantly combined with a fantastically swooning and crooning vocal.

Back in 2009, Tessa Harris writing in the NME said that Cats On Fire had found their sound....but that unfortunately it belongs to The Smiths.  It also referred to some of the other influences I mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago but then damned the band by saying they lacked the intensity and energy of their influences. Sorry Tessa, but you weren't around 20 years ago to be able to stand up such a statement.  I saw all of the great bands that Cats On Fire have been compared to, and Mattias and the boys more than hold their own in all ways, including on record and as live performers.  Here's the proof:-

mp3 : Cats On Fire - Solid Work (2003)
mp3 : Cats On Fire - My Friend In The Comfortable Chair (2004)
mp3 : Cats On Fire - Higher Grounds (2006)
mp3 : Cats On Fire - The Smell Of An Artist (2007)
mp3 : Cats On Fire - Horoscope (2009)

And some visuals........













If you like a lot of what you've heard at this blog over the past 5 years, then I really do urge you to check out Cats On Fire. You will not be at all disappointed.