Emananting from Kramer’s semi-tropical compound at Noise Miami, this interesting slo-rock trio, made up of breathy vocalist Nerida Trask, guitarist Richmond Brain and drummer Greg Ryan, moves freely between the decades (80s, 90s, 00s). Catnip primarily ride on the shoulders of Brain’s web-like and expansive guitar work, since Trask’s vocals tend toward relative sameness on most tracks.
They’ve been compared to Low, but they don’t share that band’s brooding melancholy. Their’s is more of a deadpan presentation, with less gnashing of teeth due to Trask. They float from dreamy, mid-tempo Galaxie 500 territory on “I Wish I Was A Bird” to languid innerspace on “Blue.” “Falling”wakes from the slumber of some of the sleepier passages elsewhere, and their cover of “Tomorrow Is A Long Time” is well-rendered and quite close to the land of Cowboy Junkies.
Brain’s guitar work is the real deal. He weaves notes in, under and around the melody, creating shifting counterpoints. It takes several passes before I heard what he’s really doing on most songs. If they would push Nerida to bend her voice more and turn the gain up, they’d really be staking out their own plot. They have it in them. Like all of us, they just have to dig a little deeper to find it.
