The Cat Empire "Cinema"

My good friend Jeff is going to have a heart attack when he hears this record.  This is one of my favorite finds of 2010.  Trolling the Australian charts once again, I stumbled onto this band name and just had to give it a listen.  What I heard was THE SECOND COMING OF SPLIT ENZ(!), but this upgraded model features horns!  Not just a saxophone, HORNS plural!  Lead trumpet, for crying out loud.  Made me think of Chase and Herb Alpert!  One of the two lead vocalists sounds eerily like Tim Finn.  And I mean Split Enz people, not Crowded House.  Lots of keyboards with background guitars, based in a musical bowl of multi-genre contents.  The ska and Latin rhythms coupled with the horns would lead someone to compare to Oingo Boingo, but its more like Cake than Boingo.  I thought of fellow Aussie band Hunters & Collectors, but their horns were more dissonant in a section setting.  "Cinema" is eleven tracks of happy, intellectual, smile-a-minute, pop gems.  Here is an album release live take of "Shoulders." 

I was so enamoured by this album that I had to find out more about the band.  Turns out "Cinema" is Cat Empire's 4th commercial studio release, and the five-member group (six, if you count the DJ...yep, there's scratchin' on the record!) utilizes additional horns and an endless list of guest artist contributions.  Their live shows can include a string section and a group of dancers (what, nobody paints onstage?) and are said to be quite improvisational in nature.  I see they have a double live CD from last year and I am going to pull the trigger on it instead of previous studio releases.  Some of the reviews I've read from the band's faithful following suggest that this album is a departure from earlier recordings, and since I absolutely LOVE "Cinema", I'll try the live history instead.