Catherine Wheel's 'Adam And Eve' is a pretty astounding record

just set a new record for repeats (maybe) with this album, certainly feels that way. so fucking epic

Anyone else really like "Happy Days"? Anyone... ?

i'll give it another go. the only one i really liked was 'heal' (and 'shocking'), but that was only after a couple of cursory listens. 'eat my dust...' was done SO much better on the next album with 'thunderbird' and 'ma solituda'.

listening to it right now, and it really isn't doing it for me at all. it's forgettable and crass! adam and eve is unimaginably superior. i mean, the VERY best songs on happy days, heal and shocking, would be BY FAR the worst tracks on A&E. not even close.

a great way to look at A&E would be to say, "Hmm, that last track, 'For Dreaming', is amazing, and one of my favourite songs. I think I'll give it a listen. But hang on, the previous track, 'Goodbye', is also amazing. I think I'll give that a listen first. Oh wait, 'Here Comes The Fat Controller'! Another good'un. Let's give that a go as well..."

You end up listening to the whole album, because EVERY TRACK is 'a good'un'. EVERY track is a highlight. Every track deserves praise, every track is maximally epic. Happy Days cannot begin to compare. I can't believe it's the same band! A&E might be my new favourite album of 1997 (ahead of Radiator), Happy Days was as recent as 1995.

'judy staring at the sun' has just come on, and (on second thoughts) it's probably the best song here. still wouldn't make A&E. 'hole' has a reeeal nice chorus. why is the album suddenly improving right towards the end? wow, 'fizzy love' is kinda good! not that good, though. hahaha, 'kill my soul' is good too! REALLY catchy chorus here (not much substance apart from that, mind)! what with 'shocking' and the semi-decent 'eat my dust', i'd say without hesitation that the second half is superior to the first.

still worse than everything on A&E, which i'm now going to doze off to. awesome.

"Happy Days" was such a disapointment for me, i missed this title alltogether - i'll have to have a look-see.

Happy Days was the first CW I ever heard and a girl I liked let me borrow it. So my favorable opinions of the album, esp. "God Inside My Head," "Little Muscle," and "Eat My Dust You Insensitive Fuck," are probably a little biased by nostalgic brain juice. Oh well!

"for dreaming", on headphones. this might be the best straight-up rock song of the 1990's.

Anyone else really like "Happy Days"? Anyone... ?

*crickets*

and on that note...yes, Adam and Eve is astounding, the best CW album by a mile. and Ferment/Chrome were both pretty solid, so that's a big compliment. gonna listen to it tonight -- why not?

Immaculate production, you can hear everything so clearly even when it gets loud and raucus. I'm coming up empty trying to come up with an album that evokes a similar feeling - this sort of fist in the air enthusiasm coupled with a sneaking suspicion of being a fraud. "I'm just a rock'n'roll Joe with tales of woe" indeed.

Meanwhile I met Rob Dickinson once and he was an ace bloke, wicked friendly and chatty. I think I'm one of the handful of people who liked his (patchy) solo album.

By the way, I heard from a source very close to Rob D. that he's considering regrouping Catherine Wheel for a tour and possibly an album soon -- and I'm not qualified to say more than that, but it's more likely than not to happen in, say, the next year or so, based on everything I've heard.

I've said this elsewhere on ILM, but I'll say it again here: the leap from Happy Days to Adam & Eve constitutes the single biggest inter-album improvement I have ever heard from any kind of musical act.

"Thunderbird" came up on shuffle. Immense. Just fucking immense. Like if "After The Flood" was an epic pop song. Or if a British band, any British band, was set the challenge of writing the biggest possible guitar chorus of the 1990's. Actually, the album reads pretty much like that challenge successfully attempted 10 times. And it's not all big choruses. The whole thing flows, shifts, and without seeming formulaic gradually moves from a slightly poppier (but still completely awesome) first half into a genuinely overwhelming second. Such a sense of space pervades the noise. Such patience, such pay-off. Further to what I said about "For Dreaming" above, for anthemic straight-up rock this is the finest thing going.

(I still cannot credit how this happened one album after "Happy Days". It's a different band with the same people in it.)

I knew this would be a Louis revive.

Great album, regardless.

what the hell @ that weird piano outro in "delicious"

i mean, the tiny details on this record kind of emerge slowly and indirectly; there's so much dynamic focus on the hooks that the weird asides retain novelty. i love it when records do this.

also re: weird asides, including the "intro" and "outro," they sort of feel like raw notes for the album that are also an indelible part of the album.

not making sense, this record rules, louis otm all up in here.

"Delicious" is an excellent song, but I never got into the rest of the album.

did this band ever get back together? i sort of hated all the solo stuff i heard from the main dude.

Wonder why this one's not on Spotify? The other Mercury albums are.

Never reformed as far as I know, and no subsequent solo album from Rob D.

Their albums are great and they made a crap ton of b-sides beyond what was collected on the "Cats And Dogs" comp, almost all of which are worth hearing.

cats and dogs into adam and eve makes for a smoother trajectory than going from happy days.

"Happy Days" is half great. The other half isn't terrible but the metallic sound really doesn't suit their material.

this is the best album

important brad/imago intersection node

Top shelf indie rock - psych blend. The quiet-loud dynamic is wonderful. Last I heard, Rob was building race cars in SoCal.

Celebrating half my life with this album right about now, and it still overwhelms me.

i saw this tour in San Francisco when i lived there, it was the last time i saw them after seeing them around 10 times total. they had the cover people in the box move around like live art during the show. it was pretty distracting actually.

i just counted, i have 13 singles and the Cats and Dogs B-sides collection. loved their B-sides.

important brad/imago intersection node

have to admit i was taken aback by the reviver *not* being lj

good album tho, otm

"broken nose" and "satellite" = awesome..
despite being sort of heavy and rockin, "broken nose" is so warm and cozy sounding, especially when those soft guitar leads come in during the second version, it's like a blanket being gently placed on yr shoulders

i saw them in san francisco as well once, they were HEAVY as fuck and super tight. plus they played like every song i wanted to hear.

God, I love this album so much. Even after playing it recently and having a coworker ask during "Future Boy" if I was listening to Coldplay. Ouch

Your enthusiasm is justified.

Surprising that this band hasn't had a revival of any kind when plenty of lesser 90s bands have, probably due to a lack of even a best-of compilation.

Agreed. Weird that a band like Hum still gets hipster kisses from twentysomethings while Catherine Wheel is sorta forgotten. There were those RSD vinyl reissues a few years back, but I often see them in the 50% off bins.

I've actually never heard Ferment! Should I correct this if I love Adam & Eve, Happy Days and Chrome? A lot of my CW love is tied to nostalgia, so I wonder what I'd think of it now.

Sounds like they're going for a bit of a Spirit Of Eden thing on Future Boy. I still haven't really heard that album or indeed much after Black Metallic but loved those first few EPs

the Spirit Of Eden thing returns later in the album in quite a major way haha, having Talk Talk's organist on board will do that

their most SOE song is tbf on the previous album (incongruously titled Eat My Dust You Insensitive Fuck)

I still want someone, anyone else to acknowledge that For Dreaming is one of the all-time album climaxes

Since I consolidated mine and my other half's CD collection after a big house move, this CD is currently sitting in my out pile (which is as tall as me and half again) should I save it from the clutches of eBay or Music Magpie?

you've literally moved to the county CW are from! keep it

I literally only know (and like) 'Balloon'...

Okay, it is saved, it's a promo CD too, fancy!

yeah definitely give this a try, it's like Talk Talk crossed with a really good US alt-rock album

I shall do that, ta

Paul, definitely check out "Ferment"! It's part and parcel of the first round of shoegazers but with crunchier guitars.

Haven’t thought about this band in years but I was at the Bowery show from 2000 that’s on YouTube. Girlfriend at the time took me. I thought they sounded like Bush. I also heard Talk Talk for the first time this year so there you go.