1.Road Rage [radio edit] (4:00) 2.I'm Cured (2:51) 3.Blow the Millennium pt.2 (2:28) 4. Road Rage [Ghia] (4:55)
Was it really six years ago? Yes it was, unless you're reading this in the future, obviously. Catatonia had been stragglers on the Welsh indie scene for a few years, and their 1996 debut album Way Beyond Blue drew a lot of critical acclaim but only one minor hit single ('You've Got a Lot to Answer For').
The first single from their second LP was 'I Am the Mob', which only crept to Number 40 in late 1997. But then the slightly topical 'Mulder and Scully' took advantage of the slack January charts to smash in at 3; the Top Five success of the present single finally pulled International Velvet to the top of the album chart, and turned photogenic frontwoman Cerys ("It rhymes with terrace", as she explained at the time) Matthews into a nationwide celebrity.
So, Road Rage, then. It was all over British radio (and music TV) for several months, and I'm relieved to say that it's stood up better than you might expect. The looped drum sound was very much the stuff of its time, but doesn't (yet) sound completely dated; and whilst there was some basis for the accusations that Catatonia tried a bit too hard to be topical in their lyrical content, this one is not too specific. The radio edit here is about a minute shorter than the album track; it omits the line "as all you've got to lose alludes to yesterday", but retains most of the chant of half-rhymes at the end ("space age", "minimum wage" fast lane" "home late" etc.).
The only song unique to this single is I'm Cured, one of many lyrics by guitarist Mark Roberts. It's very simplistic musically, but short enough not to irritate. Is it about sexually transmitted infections ? Maybe, if you take into account the reference to "how abstinence can wipe the slate clean", but alcohol is a more common topic for the band's work (and their lives, at the time). In either case, it has an admirable kitchen-sink quality.
There is further topicality in the title of Blow the Millennium Pt.2, which recalls at least some of the more ethereal and experimental atmosphere of the debut album, and has a faintly surreal lyric (Roberts again). The original 'Blow the Millennium (Blow, Blow)' was a mail-order 7" single in 1995.
The first two singles from the album had included punningly-titled remixes ('I Am the Mob (Luca Brassi mix)' and 'Mulder and Scully (The Ex-Files'), and the tradition continues here with Road Rage (Ghia) presumably the demo version as it was self-produced with engineer Joe Gibb. Apart from some traffic sound effects at the start and the fact that mixer Dave Bascombe doesn't fade it out, the only difference from the album version is that it's not as good. In case you were wondering, Ghia was once an Italian car styling house, bought up by Ford in the 1970s and used as a badge for more upmarket cars in Europe.
The sleeve is quite good too, part of a series that encompasses the album and four of its singles; the car theme is kept up by an exploded diagram from a parts catalogue behind the disc and the four song titles spelt out on number plates on the back cover.
Although there were two more hits from the album in 1998, things were never that good again for Catatonia. They made one more Top 10 appearance (with 'Dead from the Waist Down') and all three of their albums were on the chart when Equally Cursed and Blessed entered at the top. But the cracks were already showing and they slowly collapsed amid booze and disappointing records. After the split was made official in 2001, Matthews dried out, went solo, got married and had a baby - not necessarily in that order.
ONLINE:
Pretty slim pickings alas. With the band's demise, the official site is long gone, and many of the unofficial ones have withered away.
There are a few pictures and press clippings at Both sides now.
New Bonhomie is still there, although it's not been updated in a while - mind you, there isn't a vast amount to update.
Only a month before the split, Way Beyond Blue was set up as a fans database. Nice design.
By contrast, Sublime Magic is less obviously beautiful, but it does have a hangman game and a "dress like Cerys" section.
Finally, cerysmatthews.info is the official homepage of Cerys as a solo artist.
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