Von Braun - Cat Dog EP

(Big Red Sky Records, 2012)

Well, this is embarrassing…

Von Braun return with a new EP and I’m once again inclined to name it EP of the year so far. Anyone who read my review of last year’s Folk Devil EP will know that I’m a big fan of this Witney-based band and to be honest not much has changed here, both in terms of my opinion of the band and in the music on this fine EP. The songs on Cat Dog EP were all recorded at the same weekend-long factory recording session that produced Folk Devil EP, so the ‘live’ energy of the songs are still very much at the heart of their appeal. A few post-production tricks and jiggery-pokery have given this release a more subdued, haunting quality than last year’s offering.

Take for instance title track ‘Cat Dog’, with its Hendrix-meets-Pixies introduction; once the initial bombast has died down we’re left with smoking embers, singer Dave Anderson admitting: “I need to talk to you/Because there’s no-one else” before the sirens start and we can “feel the ground shake beneath [our] feet.” Meanwhile, ghostly background vocals and a middle-eastern sounding lead guitar part add to the ethereal mix. Similarly, the barely-audible sample in ‘Melanoma Head’ adds an uneasy texture to an already David Lynch-ian tale (“My friends think that you are scary/You are more than ordinary/Your feet don’t touch the floor…”).

But Von Braun always manage to add warmth to all of their songs, whether they’re about tumours, Pied Pipers or, as in the case in beautiful closing track ‘Into a Hollow,’ something more disturbing. A kind of dementia waltz, the track occupies the same emotional space as Vera Lynn’s wartime tear-jerker ‘We’ll Meet Again’ with its combination of blind hope and knowledge that hope is ultimately futile. It’s the vagueness of it all that is so affecting – “It feels like something will happen soon/It feels like something bad”, “I’m scared I won’t remember you/I’ve got to remember you/I don’t know what to do”. The mix is equally poignant; reverent humming, muffled drumming and reverb-drenched seventh notes adding a romantic tragedy to proceedings. It’s one of the band’s earliest songs, one that has fallen out of favour in their live performances (maybe because it’s such a downer), but it stands up against the raucous live favourites ‘Cat Dog’ and ‘Black Saxon’ that are both present on the EP.

That the band now have two brilliant releases under their belts and are still yet to release some of their best songs is quite an achievement and good news for us too – there’s more where this came from. Once again the band have chosen tracks that work well together to craft a cohesive release that balances moments of light and darkness in the band’s fully-realised sound. At a moment when so many indie bands in Oxford sound like a product of the times, Von Braun are refreshingly out of time in the best possible sense. They’re a band that will restore your faith in the concept of guitar music in all it’s simplicity and grace, a band that exude a minimalistic cool while occasionally erupting in white-hot flurries of energy. There’s only so much longer that Oxford can contain a secret like Von Braun so cherish them while they’re still here.

[Originally published on Music In Oxford, 20/06/2012]
http://www.musicinoxford.co.uk/2012/06/20/von-braun-cat-dog-ep-big-red-sky-records/

Oxford's best kept secret Von Braun return with Cat Dog EP, the follow-up to last year's criminally under-appreciated Folk Devil EP. This collection continues in much the same fashion as last year's offering, combining the best bits of twisted, angular '90's indie rock with excellent song-writing and one of the best band dynamics in town. Raucous live favourites “Cat/Dog” and “Black Saxon” are well recorded here, pleasantly rough around the edges but lesser known songs such as the Radiohead-indebted “Melanoma Head” and the heartbreakingly beautiful “Into a Hollow” shine just as brightly on this sterling EP. Boiling the band down to the prime elements you could say that they sound like the Pixies' influence on Radiohead, but the band have a dark and otherwordly charm of their own. Do yourself and the Oxford scene a favour and check this out at once. Yet another contender for best Oxford release of the year from the Von Braun camp.

[Originally published in Oxford Music Scene magazine, issue 19]
http://www.oxfordmusicscene.co.uk/images/oms_issue19.pdf