Album Review: The Cat Empire, Cinema

The fourth studio album from eclectic Melbourne rockers, The Cat Empire’s Cinema is a pleasantly poppy version of the band’s consistent brand of festive multi-genre musings. Ranging from Reggae and Ska tinged two-step beats to Latin influenced horn heavy sequences, Cinema covers a broad gamut of world music. However, the eleven cut record plays more like a soundtrack than a headliner. The cinema of this album is more garden variety “coming-of-age in Manhattan in the 80s” than, say, the epochal and emblematic “Gallipoli” or “Mad Max” and it suffers from its failure to break the mold.

This writer has nothing against catchy tunes but when a record has only catchy tunes to its credit, the album gets lost in the midst. Cinema is more than catchy tunes but just barely. The seasoned performers, with over 700 shows under their belts, ought to have come out swinging after a several year break from their last release. Not so with Cinema. The Cat Empire may have taken too long a rest and misplaced some momentum.

Any good film builds on its character development and forced suspense. Cinema lacks a good leading role and wants a story beyond the horn sections which play like an excuse to avoid lyrical depth.

All but two of the tracks blend into one another with no real jouissance. They are “Reasonably Fine” and “On My Way.”  The former is a paired-down Paul Simon-esque cut that bails on the happy-go-lucky blissfully aloof nature of The Cat Empire and moves quick to the heart of something real. Epic lyrics like, “Suddenly I’ve realized that I won’t be here when I die, And life upon this plain is somehow fleeting. Time and all its precious wine is somehow primed to make us whine, and fret even then when we should be sleeping” make “Reasonably Fine” a poetic standout. Likewise, “On My Way” bears repeating but not because of its prose but because of its hook. I forgive this song for its undeniable catchiness and poor placement. “On My Way” should be the opener.

Buy Cinema on itunes for $9.99  or on Amazon.com for $11.98.

Rating: 5/10

Tracklist:

1. Waiting
2. Falling
3. Feeling’s Gone
4. Only Light
5. All Hell
6. Shoulders
7. The Heart Is A Cannibal
8. Reasonably Fine
9. Call Me Home
10. On My Way
11. Beyond All