Following appearances at ArcTanGent, 2000 Trees and Y Not Festival and shows with The Xcerts, Natalie Evans and I Feel Fine, Brighton four-piece Wild Cat Strike are set to release their new EP ‘Mustard Coloured Years’ via Small Pond Records on 17 April.
Opening with the quiet-loud-quiet ‘Mustard’, the quartet delve into a new and exciting sound that reminded us of Dry the River, Meursault and even The Beatles before taking a mathy turn when the guitars get turned up. The song has a jangly opening as the band offer up some important advice: ‘How have you been? Do yourself a favour. Just let it go, you can’t teach dead dogs new tricks’. Following this is the two-part ‘Toothcutter’, the first of which falls somewhere between early Manics and Desaparecidos with its spiky hooks, darkly tinged lyrics (‘You never sold your soul just to drown in holy water’) and impassioned pleas of ‘Keep your mouth shut’, while the second part delves more into a settled twinkly emo sound – albeit with poignant lyrics about sadness, grief and anxiety: ‘Where’s your head at? Don’t nobody care… Nobody cares’.
‘Swamp’ has a gentler, more evocative opening before huge guitar hooks take it into the post rock-tinged direction (although sprinkled with pop sensibilities) that served Tall Ships so well. It’s a heartfelt and very touching song about mortality and how you have to find solace in the fact when people are gone, they are out of pain: ‘Gone dark again, the day I die I hope the sun’s white teeth are shining’. The EP closes with ‘Beekeeper Song’, a piece of DIY bedroom pop awash with even more emotion and musings on life: ‘When we die our bodies’ beekeepers fill the empty hives, console the lonely housewives. I leave you as fast as I found you. Heaven’s always got a spare room’.
Wild Cat Strike are ready to pounce and become one of your favorite new bands…