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.
