Well the Love Cats have been out of the bag for some time and post-punk in all it's varied forms doesn't need a revival anymore, it's back , perhaps not as big as it once was but really what genre of music is? This British band takes Sisters of Mercy like grooves but takes the dance out of them and replaces it with more of a punk drive. Their singer puts a little more into it than the monotone Ian Curtis narration, that my wife used to refer to as "the voice" with a slight disdain. There is more of rock sound to "Changing of the Guitar" which sounds like R.E.M, sampling the riff from "Lucretia, My Reflection" and doing their "Green" era thing over it. "Monolith" has more of a creep to it as their introspection brings a little more shade to their sound.
"Movement" goes into more of a Midnight Oil direction with it's bass driven take on radio rock of a bygone era. They do remember the importance of vocal hooks from the New wave days. The bring in more of dark wave, synth heavy sound on "Connection & Rapture", it reminds me of Vnv Nation's less symphonic and more aggressive moments, though you could insert many bands who use a similar formula into this equation.
They go into a more straight forward punk slanted version of post-punk, with the bass maintaining a dominate role. "Electric Eyes" feels like Billy Idol covering "I'll Stop the World and Melt with You". Though there is more of a hard rock pulse to it."Cold Life" is rather plodding and fails to really engage me.One of the album's best song's is the darker "Hey Day" which takes the glum up to 11. The album as a whole is not an 11, but rather a 7.5 as it hits more than it misses, some of it's more straight forward rock moments could benefit from more atmosphere and the band is at their peak when allowing themselves to give into their dark side.
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