42.
Catherine WheelAdam and eveIndie/Alternative/Prog Rock
Chrysalis Records 1997
1 (Intro) – 1:23
2. "Future Boy" – 5:15
3. "Delicious" – 5:10
4. "Broken Nose" – 5:20
5. "Phantom of the American Mother" – 5:43
6. "Ma Solituda" – 5:12
7. "Satellite" – 5:14
8. "Thunderbird" – 6:39
9. "Here Comes the Fat Controller" – 5:31
10. "Goodbye" – 7:02
11. "For Dreaming" – 7:15
12. (Outro) – 3:00
Band line up
Rob Dickinson – vocals, guitar
Brian Futter – lead guitar, backing vocals
Dave Hawes – bass guitar
Neil Sims – percussion, drums
Catherine Wheel were originally an indie/alternative band from England, who's 'claim to fame' was having Talk Talk's Tim Friese-Greene produce
and play on their first couple of albums.
This type of band and music at the time of discovery (1995) was definitely not my thing, but my girlfriend of that time it was her fave band.
So this led me to get into them and to my surprise I actually enjoyed them and still do to this day,
Singer/guitarist/composer Rob Dickinson, cousin of Bruce also gave the band a bit of a boost in the curiosity stakes, though Rob has a pretty good voice, it's actually nothing like his more famous cousin's at all.
The previous release Happy Days, the band went for a lot heavier almost grungey sound, which produced a couple of MTV hits, being 'Waydown' 'Little Muscle' and 'Judy Staring At The Sun'.
For this release the label brought in two big guns, producer Bob Ezrin and renown artist Storm Thorgerson, both who had worked with Pink Floyd.
While I would say there is a bit of Floyd vide about a few songs here, the sound is very distinctive.
But despite all this the album didn't quite do as well as one might have thought.
Whether the indie crowd thought the record was too prog, or for the proggers there was too much alternative, this was 1997 and the year of OK Computer.
For this genre of music, the Radiohead album pretty much swept everything aside and I suspect this is one of the reason's this album was better received.
Maybe it was just a little clever for it's own good?
The music here is quite varied and quite a few singles were issued along with the obligatory video's.
Though I am not exactly sure, this might be a concept album, in a any case I would recommended listening to this all the way though.
Ma Solitude
https://youtu.be/FO9WfBVx9-oDelicious
https://youtu.be/FbjnGvZvpSYBroken Nose
https://youtu.be/tzgkx0A3a00I actually picked an album that is on Spotify Australia and hopefully other territories too
https://open.spotify.com/album/4PpDuVrcgj85ycg2H4ZVNm