Great an album that opens up with 41 seconds of someone getting onto a boat before a slowly building riff, a few space noises from a synth and… you get the picture – it’s two minutes and 17 seconds that you’ll never play again.
Don’t get me wrong I loved Cats in Space’s debut and follow-up: ‘Too Many Gods’ (2015) and ‘Scarecrow’ (2017) were two albums which showed us a band that wasn’t afraid to channel the sounds of 70’s Rock without calling to play round the houses of either Zeppelin or Sabbath. However 2019’s ‘Daytrip to Narnia’ for me was a game of two halves with the Narnia half wonderful and the six tracks telling ‘The story of Johnny Rocket’ still not something I’ve gotten into even a year later…
Back to the present though – once you get over that opener then ‘Spaceship Superstar’ is a great slab of 70’s Radio Rock with some searing guitar and probably where I would have started. “Revolution’ might be even better as a slick 70’s Pop-Rock commentary on 2020 – already it’s a veritable Rock and Roll party!
The good news is that it keeps on giving – ‘Sunday Best’ is nice and quirky and has that lovely light ELO meets AOR vibe, whilst ‘Listen to the radio’ adds more AOR slickness which actually really suits new singer Damien Edwards who replaced Mark Pascall who joined the Cats after original vocalist Paul Manzi departed to join The Sweet after the first half of ‘The Narnia Tour’ at the end of 2019.
First single ‘I Fell Out of Love with Rock ‘n’ Roll is the big ‘Queen’ moment and suitably statuesque. And the remainder is just a cool with ‘Marionettes’ adding another mellow moment with some clever lyrics and ‘Queen of the Neverland’ bursting forth right after to kick some ass in real style before the stripped back summer sky groove of ‘Magic Lovin’ Feelin’.’
And the quality lasts till the end of the record which is rounded out by the smooth and silky ‘Can’t Wait ‘Till Tomorrow’; the rather “Supertrampy” and beautifully built ‘Season’s Change’ and the final word, the rather contemplative ‘Atlantis’ which again channels a bit of Freddie. It’s all rather magical ad had I reviewed this before the deadline this year I know it would have featured in the Best of 2020 lists!
8.5/10
