Thursday, August 18, 2011

Seacats - Extra Point on Fin Records


Fin Records out of Seattle, who put out that impressively packaged Diving Bell single sent in their latest from Seacats, a five piece from Kelso Washington. They carry this national pastime design through to the inner sleeve which is also full color with band baseball card photos on one side and a felt diamond graphic with liner notes on the other. Are their extra points in baseball? No. Even I know that. Are there extra points in 7inches? They just got one with the red vinyl.

The A-Side, "We Don't Sleep", a tin can electric repeated loop is the '90s foundation to the thin, distant falsetto vocal from Josh Davis, but it's a case of holding back like Weezer's Blue album to gradually build this one up over a few verses, layer in more sets of vocals, a booming track of drums...to blow this one over the high back wall in the park. The guitars and keys keep coming, handclaps, extra innings. They've been really holding back for that light smashing homerun. There's even a synth, guitar melody that's a page out of the old good Weezers Pink album. It's got a huge slick sound like that Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots experimental shiny pop...and was produced by 15 year old member Mike Davis? They're obviously having fun, ending up in that late '90s place when this could have ended up in the rotation of that alternative DJ. It's a damn quick power pop hit, and I'm a little sad all that work ends up hitting the wall so fast, but then they cut the grooves wide on this one and I'll just go play it again.

The B-Side, "Hard Truth" finds these Seacat dudes on some kind of ranch, in a slow country scene. Cheap, rattling guitars, banjos and talking 'bout the hard truth. Josh is joined by Sheena Graves for that she and him duet feel. Pickup everything from a steel guitar, a clarinet... organs. Already it's one of those B-Side tracks when everything's said and done that's going to be a mystery...you can hear the elements that ended up in those huge power pop hits, but how did we get there from here?
Whoa! Hidden track. Cheap synth sounds, crappy drum machine...messing around after hours having just listened to Ween. Monotone, "Football, football, it's my favorite sport. This is the extra point song...I get it now. Name a bunch of football terms and teams and it's like they've compacted Ween's entire discography into one single. There is no telling where these guys are headed. These three tracks prove they aren't tied to any particular sound and are going to stay surprising.
Unlike baseball.

Get this one from Fin Records.

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