Does the idea of a supergroup scare you?<\/p>\n
Granted, when artists from different bands come together to work
\non a “project”, the results too often don’t live up to the
\npotential or hype. Perhaps this happens because the sessions are
\ninformal and the atmosphere is very loose, not exactly a great
\nsetting for inspiration. That said, do not be afraid of the latest
\nsupergroup, Swag, or their CD
\nCatch-All<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Swag was formed when Robert Reynolds and Jerry Dale McFadden,
\ntwo members from the country band, the Mavericks, decided they
\nwanted to explore making an album of songs in the style of sixties
\nand seventies pop-rock. Before you can say “Chris Gaines”, they
\nhooked up with like-minded artists such as Cheap Trick bassist Tom
\nPetersson (obviously no stranger to seventies pop),
\nsinger\/songwriter Doug Powell, and Ken Coomer, the drummer for the
\nalt-country band, Wilco.<\/p>\n
\nCatch-All<\/i> is a virtual tour-de-force of classic pop. On each
\ntrack, the listener gets to play the game, name that influence,
\nstarting with the faux-British Invasion opener, “Lone”. Granted,
\nabsolutely no new ground is broken here, but what makes
\nCatch-All<\/i> so enjoyable is the attention to detail the band
\ngives these songs, including the most
\nimportant detail of all: these songs are incredibly
\ncatchy.<\/p>\n
Powell was certainly serious about this project. The two songs
\nhe co-wrote and sings on
\nCatch-All<\/i> sound like they could have made it to one of his
\nsolo albums. In fact, “When She Awoke” did appear in demo form on
\nhis CD,
\nCuriouser<\/i>. In
\nCatch-All<\/i>, producer Brad Jones fleshes out the song in all
\nits glory, making it sound like a tender ballad
\nthat George Harrison might have written for the Beatles.<\/p>\n
The other song Powell wrote is much different. “I’ll Get By” is
\na rocker that frankly I cannot trace the influence. Powell sings
\nthis one with great intensity, and it is not the type of feel-good
\nsong that dominates the CD. It has this great line: “Our love was
\njust a play\/I never paid to see\/but your little tragedy\/it’s all
\nGreek to me.”<\/p>\n
\nCatch-All<\/i> alternates between ballads and rockers, for the
\nmost part very smoothly. One exception is the sweet folk-rock
\nballad, “Near Perfect Smile”, and the garage-band stomper, “Please
\nDon’t Tell”, which are good songs on their own, but a bit of a
\nrough transition hearing them back to back. These two songs do show
\nthe versatility of Reynolds as a singer, considering he is not the
\nlead singer of his own band.<\/p>\n
McFadden, the other Maverick, has a distinctively high-pitched
\nvoice but puts it to very good use on songs like the very catchy
\n“Louise”, the cute Paul McCartneyesque number, “Trixie”, and on the
\nother end of the spectrum, the rocking “Ride”. He can also be heard
\nsinging in unison with Reynolds on the aforementioned “Please Don’t
\nTell”, and on “You”, a bluesy pop song recalling something John
\nLennon might have written for the Beatles around 1968 or 1969.<\/p>\n
By now, you’ve figured out that the Beatles are a huge influence
\non
\nCatch-All<\/i>, so much so that Coomer’s one singing
\ncontribution, “Eight”, basically sounds like, for better or worse,
\nthe Ringo song on a Beatles album. At least, the Beatles songs they
\nreference aren’t obvious ones like “I Want To Hold Your Hand”.<\/p>\n
Other influences on
\nCatch-All<\/i> range from the Beach Boys on the pretty ballad,
\n“Different Girl” to “Ride”, which not only sounds like
\nIn Color-<\/i>era Cheap Trick, but mentions Cheap Trick in the
\nlyrics, just in case you didn’t get the reference. “She’s
\nDeceiving” is the closing number and with its soft and loud
\npassages, it pretty much sums up the whole CD.<\/p>\n
Is
\nCatch-All<\/i> a great album? Hardly. Swag won’t make anyone
\nforget the bands or the albums that they are emulating, but if you
\nlike the artists they like, it is definitely a fun listen. Everyone
\nsounds like they were having fun making it, but they also sound
\nlike they were serious about getting it right. So for that, you
\ncould call this an anti-supergroup album.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":28146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7648],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-39542","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-swag","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39542"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}