To Catch a Thief – Monsters
After 3 EPs between 2007 and 2009, ‚Monsters‚ is the first and at the same time last full length record by To Catch a Thief. Initially recorded in 2010, it was supposed to be a hell of a debut album. Due to several unfortunate circumstances it’s their final record, too.
Opening with the extremely short [01:34] and extremely strong ‚Clocks‚, To Catch a Thief show how it’s done right from the beginning. Being initially released in 2011 and fittingly accompanied by the [no longer active] webpage 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-22-23-24.com, the track hasn’t lost any of it’s face-smashing appeal ever since. But as if it wasn’t heavy enough as it is, the band got Jamie Lenman out of his self-imposed state of musical retirement to really blow our heads off. And while he’s roaring „I’m not so fucking sure you’ll get to see the sun once again with clocks in your eyes“ on this one, the over-the-top technical metal track ‚One of My Eyes is a Clock‚ from his latest solo-effort ‚Muscle Memory‚ seems to be a slight nod at that.
Mostly, the quartet from Edinburgh employs catchy hooks and killer riffs while guitarist and singer Ally Lane busts out melodies that will haunt you for weeks. In between things calm down a little with jazzy chords and some eerie melodies, which never fail to bring a haunting, somewhat melancholic atmosphere to the table.
In some places you get to see how versatile Ally’s voice really is – listening to ‚Veins‚ one could think it’s Thomas Erak of The Fall of Troy or maybe even Tilian Pearson of Tides of Man when the most glorious moment of ‚A Complaint to God‚ kicks in. This being said, he still maintains a distinct mixture of singing and screaming at all times.
Over the course of 38 minutes the album goes from straight-in-your-face over quite a bit technical to melancholical and back again without ever getting boring. And while there are a lot of mention-worthy songs on this album, the title track ‚Monsters‚ and especially ‚Haunt‚ stand out quite the most. Not only because Jamie Lenman does some inconspicuous guest vocals on the latter too, but also because of the dynamic build-up including a subtle piano that will send shivers up your spine.
Even though the album is only available digitally it still sounds huge and a look inside the pdf-booklet gives me a pretty good idea why: it was recorded and produced by Sean Genockey, the man with the mustache, who was also responsible for Engerica’s ‚There Are No Happy Endings‚ and Reuben’s last album ‚In Nothing We Trust‚.
March 17 does not only mark the release of ‚Monsters‚, vocalist Ally Lane also releases his solo-debut-EP ‚Open Water‚ the same day and in doing so he follows almost kind of a tradition of singers and guitar players of emo-, punk- and post-hardcore bands, who start a singer/songwriter career after their main band has disbanded [e.g. Dallas Green, Frank Turner, Chuck Ragan, etc. etc.].
The last track ‚Daisies‚ puts To Catch a Thief‘s monsters to sleep once and for all. It’s a shame, they’d have had a great future in front of them.
Kommentieren