Regular readers may have noted I have a love hate relationship with The Catherines. Take their last two releases prior to this. How Come You Think Everybody Likes You? is a fuzzy pop tune that took from Primal Scream’s Velocity Girl and much more besides. It was great. That contrasted to Why Are You Always So Sarcastic... You Prick? which was dire and tuneless. It was the sound of The Smiths without the wit.
And now onto She Has a Knack for Seeing Other People’s Faults which thankfully errs on the side of the former. The Catherines will be the first to admit they are not original. Take the early 1980’s indie artwork that adorns their releases for starters. And musically this new song is their idea of if The Byrds were a shoegaze band. It’s another fine fuzzy pop tune that excels in it’s 1960’s influences but I don’t get the shoegaze angle at all. It’s pretty similar to Bubblegum Lemonade.
I appreciate the band record for fun hence their non stop output. However if they concentrated on reducing the quantity over quality they could be a pretty special band indeed. But for now I will take every 2nd or 3rd release being a pretty decent song.