Artist: The Smittens
Title: Cats for Cats
Format: Digital single
Cat#: Fika067SG1
Release date: 8th June 2018
Bandcamp | Spotify | iTunes
The Smittens return with Cats for Cats, their first new track since 2016’s Love Record Breaker, ahead of the summer’s UK tour and Indietracks appearance. Their 6th full length album will be released in August.
The Smittens’ Max Andrucki descibed Cats for Cats:
”Masc for Masc" is obviously a gay dating app cliche, and for a long time I felt like it was just too obvious a reference so I resisted it, until simply couldn't any more! I was thinking of substitutes for that lyric that I could use instead and a friend, whom i actually met on Scruff, suggested "Cats for Cats". In the end I kept the original lyric but added that one as well. Maybe I just like cats, and especially the idea of cats as little, queer icons. The song is maybe about being 40, and in a long term relationship and horny, and again how the freedom of experimentation always comes with its own costs. Like dipping your toes in water, like sailing the open sea.”
The Smittens are a 6-piece indiepop band that make upbeat and introspective tunes, tinged with vulnerability and optimism. While sonically the elements of multi-layered harmonies, countermelodies and ba-ba-ba singalong hooks still play a large part in The Smittens’ approach to songwriting, as each of the 4 main songwriters has grown, the overall perspective of the songs seems a bit moodier, and more serious. They’ve long since left behind the label of being a ‘cute’ or ‘twee’ band since their debut album 15 years ago.
City Rock Dove is instead an album of transition, ennui and nihilism; honing in on personal politics and gender queerness. The album contends with the turbulent changes of modern America serving only to cement the status quo - and it’s not just the outside world that’s changing either: The Smittens are also singing about the changes in themselves and taking a hard look inside. Gary Olson (Ladybug Transistor) returned to mix the new album, having been instrumental in helping develop the richer textures first seen on 2016’s Love Record Breaker EP.
Pre-order City Rock Dove on 12" heavyweight vinyl or digitally
Catch them on their short UK tour on the dated below:
July 24 - Cambridge, The Blue Moon
July 25 - London, The Shacklewell Arms
July 26 - Sheffield, Cafe Totem
July 28 - Derbyshire, Indietracks Festival
