Catatonia - Equally Cursed and Blessed (UK Edition) 1999


pw = purgatory

mp3 @ 320 kb/s

all artwork included

America has Madonna and Toni Braxton and Britain has Cerys Matthews. Cerys who, you say?

Matthews is the ballsy, irreverent singer for Welsh popsters Catatonia and is a bona fide diva, the queen of the U.K. pop world...and she's even good at what she does, a real singer of substance not fluffy image.

If International Velvet was Catatonia exploding into the public sights, Equally Cursed And Blessed is the sound of a band realising what's happened, and as such it is a much more personal album.

Opening track "Dead From The Waist Down" is the view of America from a tour bus window, while "Bulimic Beats" is glassily fragile and backs Cerys' voice with a harp. Not that it lacks humour, even given the subject matter; The line "A front line with labels where I witness custard's last stand" shows a continued and healthy approach to taking the piss. In other places, Catatonia stomp in wittily as they always have, particularly with "Londinium" ("I come alive outside the M25") and the wonderful, Clash-tinged "Storm The Palace", an anti-Royalist song suggesting what we can do with the Queen and her house ("Turn it into a bar, let them work in Spar"). Plus, on "She's A Millionaire", Cerys has the best pronunciation of the word gynaecology ever put to record.

1. Dead From The Waist Down
2. Londinium
3. Post Script
4. She's A Millionaire
5. Storm The Palace
6. Karaoke Queen
7. Bulimic Beats
8. Valerian
9. Shoot The Messenger
10. Nothing Hurts
11. Dazed, Beautiful And Bruised

enjoy