IN THE COURT OF CATHERINA SQUEEZER

The followup to their debut "Long Live The sliced Ham" continues in that Jazz Rock style but "In The Court Of Catherine Squeezer" is much more consistent and that silliness and crude humour is all but gone. You wouldn't know that of course from the album's title or the cover art but this is a much more mature effort and my favourite of their first two classic studio recordings. I still feel both are 3.5 star albums but this is my favourite of the two and I'm bumping this one up to 4 stars.

I was surprised that I thought of NUCLEUS a few times but like I said they just seemed to get more serious here, less silly. Still this doesn't reach the highs of the debut but more importantly it doesn't hit those lows either. They've gone from a five piece to a seven piece adding two horn players to the one already in the band. One of those players was a guest on the debut. Way less guests on this one but we still get some added vocals plus a couple of guests adding synths. I'm such a fan of the clavinet I just wish there was more on here.

The almost title track "Song For Catherine" is my favourite not so much for the lyrics but the melody. Lots of horns as I mentioned and while they combine them to what I normally refer to as "blasting horns" these just aren't really blasting but almost droning which I like better. This time they've offered up an over 16 minute suite instead of a bunch of shorter songs like on the debut. And while this suite called "The Day I Came To Life" is far from adventerous they do change it up enough and repeat themes enough to make this uniform and interesting.

There's a reggae vibe on that opener "Jungle Dreams" and those rough bluesy vocals on the second track "I'll Still Have My Soul" so this record doesn't exactly start off the greatest but the next song "L's Mood" is excellent, very jazzy kind of like "Lahti Jumps" but I don't like this one as much.

A low 4 stars but I'm so glad to have been able to spend some time with this band's music which I find hit and miss but talent in spades.