Cat Spectactular!:Bearsuit

Cat Spectacular!
Label: 3hive

Genre: Crazy indie-rock

Rating: 8/10

Norwich, England’s Bearsuit will no doubt be familiar with a phrase that very well describes them stateside: Fucked up. Awash in acid-rock guitars and shoegazer vocals, “Cat Spectacular!” arrives with a smile and a wink on “Welcome Bearsuit Spacehotel,” only to launch into a fine Belle & Sebastian impression on “Cookie Oh Jesus.” “Rodent Disco” spirals drunkenly between dancepunk and twee-pop; you can never quite put your finger on it. That, as John Peel aptly noted, makes them “not quite like anything.” The live show they’ve created (featuring blood-soaked prom dresses, “nurse of death” outfits, and of course the inevitable bear suits) is itself a concoction of another kind in the same bizarre vein as other British new-millennium weirdoes (British Sea Power, The Libertines).

Listening to this album is frustrating and gleefully entertaining all at once partly because every song is a complete departure from the previous song; sometimes, single songs depart dramatically from themselves: Witness the click-starting “Going Steady” which takes a short while to get going… But in that short time, the band seems to be deciding on a whim how it wants to go. It’s an incredible blend of styles from an incredibly young six-piece that has already released an album, an EP, and five singles. Impervious to conventional anythings, Bearsuit will carry on with the spirit of art-rock’s finest. “Cat Spectacular!” is simply another milemarker on the road to glory.