If you grew up anywhere within the New York TV viewing radius in the Eighties, you probably remember the commercials advertising the Poconos’ “beautiful Mount Airy Lodge.” Fantastic Cat sure do.
The band’s new video for “All My Fault” is rich in shameless cheese — and gloriously fun. Structured around a video-dating-for-singles conceit in Pennsylvania’s mountain playground, the clip casts all four members of Fantastic Cat.
But that’s what makes the band of songwriters, lead singers, and multi-instrumentalists such a breath of fresh air. While they take their music seriously, everything else is an ego balloon ready to be popped. Even how they announce their new album, Now That’s What I Call Fantastic Cat, is fair game. In an off-kilter press release, they describe themselves as such: “Think CSNY if none of them were famous, or The Traveling Wilburys if none of them were famous, or the Eagles if they really didn’t get along.” Hey, if the cat mask fits…
While the band’s last album, The Very Best of Fantastic Cat, was essentially a collection of solo songs written and recorded by each member, Now That’s What I Call Fantastic Cat is a group effort. Last summer, the musicians decamped to DiLego’s Velvet Elk Studio — in the Poconos — to write and record 11 new tracks. First release “All My Fault,” with shades of the Clash’s “Train in Vain,” is a blast of power-pop jangle.
Now That’s What I Call Fantastic Cat will be released June 7 on Missing Piece Records. The band will hit the road for headlining dates and in support of Low Cut Connie, starting March 28 in Denver.
