Caw! Caw! should be more well known. Unless you were searching specifically for this review, chances are you’ve never heard of Caw! Caw!. Yet, they’ve been playing music in and around their native Chicago since 2001 and have been independently releasing their music through a 2008 EP and a MySpace music page. From what I’ve discovered in the backwaters and far corners of the internet, the band’s been winning over fans one at a time the old fashioned way: with high-energy house shows, mini-tours, and artistic sincerity. 2010’s Bummer Palace is their wildly ambitious full-length debut, a sprawling statement proclaiming the obsolescence of genre descriptors and musical boundaries.
It’s difficult to write about how Caw! Caw! move from indie rock to post-rock to pop to punk, adding flourishes of soul or ska or new wave, all with a soaring falsetto reminiscent of Sigur Ros. It’s clear that Caw! Caw! draw from an ever-growing body of influences, and I’m sure that the unfamiliar reader is probably about ready to dismiss this band as one that suffers from the sheer sum of its parts. However Caw! Caw!’s sound is remarkably cohesive and Bummer Palace is surprisingly devoid of jarring transitions. Continue reading ‘Caw! Caw!: Bummer Palace’
In 1999 I bought my first Pavement album, Wowee Zowee. I think I had heard Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain’s “Cut Your Hair” on MTV’s 120 Minutes or in a friend’s car or something and thought it sounded a bit Weezer-ish and pretty cool. When I got to the record store they didn’t have Crooked Rain, but they did have Wowee Zowee and the cover was sorta funny so I went ahead and purchased that as my first Pavement album. I don’t remember much of my first listen except thinking that this didn’t sound much like “Cut Your Hair.” These songs were really weird, but also kinda cool. I wasn’t really sure what to make of it.
Listening to CAW! CAW!’s Bummer Palace is very similar. Not that they sound like Pavement (they don’t), but they play music that is not easily categorized and my first impression is that this music is both very strange but also quite awesome and unique. Moreover, this is a band that doesn’t take itself too seriously and has a great sense of humor, both of which are extremely refreshing.
CAW! CAW!’s closest musical relative might be the indie darlings of yesterday, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah or the lesser known but incredibly awesome Kudzu Wish. Bummer Palace is frantic, angsty rock music that is seemingly always being pulled in a million different directions: pop, indie rock, punk, hardcore, soul, psychedelic, shoegaze. The genre bending is probably Bummer Palace’s greatest strength and biggest weakness. However, with songs continually shifting and changing, it is a fun album that rewards listeners with multiple listens (I’m on 2.5 listens at time of writing and still trying to wrap my head around some of these songs).
The best introduction to CAW! CAW! might be the “band photo” they’ve posted on their MySpace page:
Interested? Do yourself a favor and go listen to a handful of the tracks from Bummer Palace on their MySpace band page.