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HOWLING . . . IT GROWS AND GROWS
(Sub Pop)
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This disc’s title is appropriate: few young bands tap the howling scraped-nerve spirit of punk rock’s first generation with the Catheter’s noisy authority. You’ll hear a lot in their scalding mixes, depending on your reference points. I get flashbacks of the first line-up of Richard Hell & the Voidoids, Pylon, the Dead Boys, the Stooges, the early Cramps, the Sex Pistols, and Gang of Four as tunes like the paranoid "No Natural Law" burn my ears. If that sounds like most of primal punk rock’s hall of fame, so be it. These guys are that good. But any echoes you hear aren’t as important as the way singer Brian Standeford moans and rants as if he had a heartful of shrapnel and soul, or the way guitarist Derek Mason seems to have a bottomless bag of string-strangling bends, atonal bombs, and raggedly ass-clattering riffs that explode from everywhere in the 11 tunes that make up this Seattle outfit’s third album. "Ravenous Animal" is especially cool, its grizzly power chords and grinding licks compounded by Standeford’s yelping portrayal of himself as a rabid, desperate beast. And underneath it all, a sense of hooks and melody still bleeds through, especially in the big chorus of "Easy Life" and the chopping, chiming guitar that propels "Cold Blood Crawling." Here’s another cheap comparison: if you weren’t too happy with the recent MC5 reunion that included Evan Dando, the way this crew kick out the jams should slap a smile back on your face.
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