WILD CAT STRIKE stream new single ‘Horses’
Record Label: Small Pond Recordings
Impact Date: 24th November, 2017
Live dates TBA
Out 24th November, ‘Horses’ is the first in a pair of back-to-back single releases to come from Wild Cat Strike, revealing a freshly sharpened spin on their sound – an idiosyncratic, noisy-beautiful brand of alternative rock that is brimming with post-rock and folk influences.
Gigging since 2012, with sets at festivals including 2000trees and Y Not adding to recent support slots for bands including The Xcerts and regular headlines in their hometown and beyond, this Brighton based four-piece have developed into a formidable live outfit while building up momentum in the studio via a flurry of EPs.
Following praise for their most recent EP release, ‘I Want To Be The White That Sleeps Inside Your Bones’, Wild Cat Strike’s compelling new recordings have found the perfect niche on the sonically adventurous Small Pond imprint, home to the likes of The Physics House Band and Luo.
With a visceral yet nuanced vocal style, Wild Cat Strike frontman, guitarist and songwriter Danny Byrom finds influence between Bright Eyes and Bukowski, quoting the latter on ‘Horses’ – a track that couples dynamic section changes with raw and honest melody. Max Boughen (guitar), Chris Whitehorn (bass) and Joe Caple (drums) complete the immersive sonic backdrop. As personal and lyrically charged as ever, this new song finds Byrom ruminating on life, death and memory, lines such as “I won’t be at your birthday but I’ll be at your funeral”painting a sad and candid landscape for both the narrator and listener.
Where their previous EP boasted huge instrumental soundscapes, each song averaging eight minutes in length, on ‘Horses’, Wild Cat Strike have maintained their adventurous, experimental charm and flair for sonic abrasion but confined it to a more disciplined format. That’s not to say that the cacophony isn’t there; it is. These days, however, it is concentrated into succinct and arresting songs that hook hard on the heartstrings, and demand repeat listens as they criss-cross in and out of chaos.
Tl:dr
Wild Cat Strike (‘waɪld ‘kæt ‘straɪk) n. 1 The feeling of folk-like intention with aggressive execution 2 The experience of immersion in sound 3 The manic shift between harmonious beauty and cacophony: [<Lat. ferus cattus inpello] Synonyms; None.
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