Hailing from the mythological town of Dayton, Ohio, the Skeptical Cats purvey a patchwork quilt of influences ranging from the Beatles to the blues into interesting and off-kilter pop songs.
Record Record is the quintet's second album, released on the band's own record label. Different members sing at different times, and a variety of instruments (saxophone, sampled orchestra, dobro, etc.) creep into the arrangements. This eclecticism does keep the pot simmering, albeit at the expense of a consistent vibe.
The two opening tracks, "Upside Down" and "Slight of Hands", both blend Doors-y keyboards and jumpy rhythm sections into lilting, They Might Be Giants-ish cabaret-pop. Guitars make their presence felt in track three, "Whiskey Breakfast", a tale of "two years in college of not to gain a damn thing/But 10k tossed in the wind." "Do Well" is a blissful piano-guitar singalong, and sure to be a high point of the band's live act. Conversely, "Sour Grapes" is a vitriolic indictment of the music industry that wouldn't have sounded out of place on the current Ben Folds Five album. The Fab Four are all over "Opaque", a gentle slice of melancholia with an unexpectedly Van Morrison-jazzy clarinet/sax break. "Soup for One" too scarily recalls the Carpenters. "Starting Over" features some very cool dobro and funky bass, and "Moon Rise on Bombay" could be an early-'70s hippy-dippy Crosby, Stills, and Nash track (minus some of the omnipresent vocal harmony).
Perhaps a tad too progressively patchwork musically to completely cohere, Record Record is nevertheless a very interesting and likable pop album, managing to be pop without making the Cats come off as if they're just after a potentially big single. Should you like your plucky-pop with an instruction manual, by all means check out Record Record. And to think that the only reason I originally listened to the disc is because I had been giggle-snorting about the thought of the Stray Cats going Sebadoh.
