Alpha Cat - Thatched Roof Glass House

Straddling a fine line between human want and need, Alpha Cat could never be confused with the wishy-washy in music. There is a maturity and depth to the music that gets highlighted at all the right times in this offering. Not the typical CD loaded with 15 songs this collection is kept to a reasonable length. The music is all the better for it as well. Plus 7 is my lucky number. Starting with the song ‘Mockingbird’ the singer sounds like she is trying to communicate with something deep inside and is using the metaphor of the mockingbird to do it.
 
“Shoot the messenger if you don’t want to hear the news
 Stay away from him if you don’t wanna catch the blues
 Nonsense, too intense
 Cover up your eyes
 Never look in the book
 The cover will suffice
 Don’t glow, don’t shine, it’s a sin
 Mockingbird, never heard”

In this day and age of 24/7 media messaging and psychic overload, it is easy to understand the vaguely psychotic impulse to “shoot” anyone with a message you do not want to hear. I can get that way sometimes regarding everyone yapping at me about how they want to make my life better by changing the way I think along with my behavior. ‘Blackhole’ is where I have to jump back from the precipice a little. It is a deep dark though melodic lament that has it all laid out in a 21st Century version of ” Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”.

“I’ve fallen into a black hole
 Looked like your heart
 Felt like my soul
 Now I’ve got nowhere to go
 From this side out looks like the end of the world
 Why’d you have to roll over me that way
 You mowed me like a wheat field on a patent black tractor
 With your back-ho jeering me from back at the farmhouse
 You got your baby cake”

The great thing about it though is the taught driving drum and guitar work that has an almost new wave sound to it. ‘Mona Lisa In A Comic Book’ keeps things moving in a good direction. The production and musicality of this CD shine on this track and a couple of other ones particularly. The title track, ‘Thatched Roof and Glass House’, also keeps the listener's interest. The most affecting song for me was the last one, ‘Reconsider Me’. Every human being alive has that one love wherein their mind, and regardless of circumstance, they’d come running.

“You’re all alone and you need someone
 Call me up and I’ll come running
Reconsider me, reconsider me
 If it’s still the past that makes you doubt
 well darlin’ that was then and this is now
 Reconsider me, reconsider me”

It can sound foolish and pathetic but to the ones who feel love, it sounds like a strong honest and humble response to one of the universally cruel elements of life when you are born in this world. Alpha Cat is a strong artist and her music and band reflect that through the 7 offerings here on this ‘Thatched Roof and Glass House’ album.