Before their untimely demise, City of Caterpillar released this lone LP in 2002 ,one demo and did a split with Pg.99 ; far too little material for a band of this quality. Incorporating some early emo elements with modern screamo and throwing in post rock-esque build ups (Think Indian Summer meets Circle Takes The Square), this album comes across as truly original.
You realise the epic scale of this record as soon as you discover that with only seven tracks, it still manages to surpass the forty-five minute mark. As soon as you first listen , you begin to realise why.
The opener “And You’re Wondering How A Top Floor Could Replace Heaven” starts with a distant droning style noise that builds and is soon accompanied by a slightly unsettling guitar line, which continues while the other instruments are added and build until the vocals and drums explode in at 0:42. The drum work after this point is particularly note worthy. The yelled vocals continue until around 2:45 where every thing cuts out and a lone guitar is left to play a strummed chord pattern. From here everything begins to come back in and builds to a crescendo over a few minutes. The vocals then re-appear, but slightly more aggressive until they are again replaced with a melodic passage. The end of the song is then brought about by the line “If it was airtight I knew you’d choke.” being repeated over and over until the song fades out.
The second track “A Heart Filled Reaction To Dissatisfaction” takes a somewhat different approach to the first track and is much shorter (2:35). Although it starts fairly melodically it then gets fairly aggressive and travels at a fair pace. This continues until basically the end.
Most of the other tracks on the CD take either one of these formats; some being short and sharp and other using building crescendos and melodic soundscapes.
Although it took me a fair few listen to really get into what this band were all about, it paid off and I now love this release. The vocals are very expressive, the dual guitar parts seem to flow together flawlessly and the drumming is always above par. The bass is also quite good, although some of the time it can be not as prominent as the other instruments at work here.
All in all, I found this album to be a very good listen, and although I was slightly unsure of it at first, it has grown on me a lot. Also it has proved pretty influential material for something produced by for such a short-lived band, and their winning formula of long winding melodic passages can be seen in currently existent band such as Circle Takes The Square and particularly, A Day In Black And White.
I tried to keep this review as short and sweet as possible, as to understand what this band are truly about you need to hear them; comparisons alone are not enough to describe the sound fully. Although ,as they are no longer active, it is quite hard to find links to their music, I’m pretty sure that you could find something on Soulseek. So…um…yeah, check them out. :thumb:
