The intimate, personal reflections in Catbells’ lyrics give expression to the nagging insecurity and uncertainty that many of us feel. It may start in isolation, as she describes in “Same As You”: “Lying on the ground I feel/painful longing I can’t heal,” but in the end it creates bonds of connection as pains are shared. Catbells may attempt to hold her feelings at a distance, as she sings in “Trying Not to Feel,” but inevitably that leads to her crying as those feeling do need to come out. In many ways, Partly Cloudy feels like a shared cathartic experience shared by the singer-songwriter and her audience.
Musically, Catbells never varies for from the mid-tempo acoustic guitar rhythms and her warm, floating vocal melodies, so Mohler brings as much variety to the proceedings as the personal nature of her work allows, adding melodic guitar parts, the occasional cello or drum machine to add to each song’s unique musical setting. On the closing track, “Riding Tides,” Catbells is on her own, singing over a simple ukulele, with only here own voice tracked as a backing vocal, not very far from the early demos that led her to create this full-length effort.
Brian Q. Newcomb
For more of Brian Q. Newcomb’s music reviews, check out The Fire Note
Other reviews you might enjoy:
- Pleasure by Feist – music review
- Sweep It Into Space (Dinosaur Jr) – music review
- Migration Stories (M. Ward) – music review
The Fire Note started to create a simple place that could showcase records that we liked. Nothing more, nothing less. The focus has always been about the album and the experience that a great record creates. The Fire Note Webzine builds on this idea by offering an array of content that is all about the enjoyment of music, its pulse and energizing attitude.