After their fabulous self-titled debut, Australian band Cat Empire has returned with a new album Two Shoes. Of course, after creating a stunning debut, the band has some large shoes (no pun intended) to fill.
In an act of great timing, the record comes just at the start of summer (2007 in America, it's been out for a year in Australia) when the type of upbeat Latin-tinged, trumpet laden songs that Cat Empire specializes in are most appropriate and likely to be played. The premier song "Sly" is one of the standouts of the album, and a fitting way to start things off. It's a fast-paced tune with reggae and pop stylings that make it ridiculously catchy. It's only a warm up for over-the-top energy to follow, however.
While Cat Empire is a fairly new name stateside, the Australian sextet are huge on their native continent. The band has two vocalists, Felix Riebl (also on percussion) and Harry Angus (also on trumpet) who share the singing duty on Two Shoes. Both have distinct voices, and equally good tracks. Felix has a deeper more typical reggae-esque voice, and his songs include "Sly", "Lullaby" and "The Night That Never End". Angus' voice is higher pitched, but works very well on numbers such as "In My Pocket" and fairly well on others (the mediocre "Protons, Neutrons, Electrons"). Occasionally, the two appear side by side in songs like "Party Started", which with its hip-hop vibe and rapped vocals will certainly, well, uh, get parties started.
While most of the songs aim to have you dancing and groovin', Cat Empire turns the volume down a few notches for "Two Shoes", a catchy yet fairly slow-paced tune with rich trumpets. "On my feet I wear two shoes for dancing / 'Dancing to be free' / My feet they're paying tribute to / The Bobby Marley legacy."
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