Music sublimes the way i feel. It makes everything stronger. This afternoon i've been feeling really weird, technology ends up being quite disappointing.

I've only had a mixed interest about Meow Meow until i heard "Amaurosis." The song made the album and the band much more interesting, giving more complexity to the whole thing. It reminds me of a more intense Air's "Highschool Lover." In "Amaurosis" Meow Meow succeed in making delicate noise, a 7 minutes 14 seconds pop song as intense as GYBE's most dramatic pieces only with more subtlety and a romantic pop sensibility.

The beginning of the album is catchy, but more mature and sadder than your usual know-it-all-"we're so emo" socal band. They sound like a catchier and sunnier Jim Yoshii Pile-Up. So, the beginning of the album is good. "Cracked" is a nice opener but when "Sick Fixation" starts you know that things are getting a bit more serious, with a catchy chorus as bitter as "Tune to a new vibration/ cause you're my sick fixation." "The Killing Kind" starts with nice glockenspiel and then there's clean noise and it reminds me of that Eels song (except that it's more catchy). you know the deal. I can hear the Beach Boys, My Bloody Valentine and Ride here and there.

"Amaurosis" is really really great. "Finis" is another ghostly pop song reminiscent of Air's Virgin Suicide's soundtrack. Dark but still sounding like a dream. With "All I ever Got" Meow Meow return to power pop territories, a bit less worried but still not really happy : "getting you to open up your heart was too much/ so all i ever got from you was an helpless crush." It's a great car-drive-in-the-summer anthem. "Dissafected" follows the same path, and is almost as good. I really like the phonecall sample outro. "Amplified Breathing Aparatus" starts really quietly and then it sounds like the late Elliott Smith and it feels nice. "Known to Man" sounds like Sparklehorse meeting Grandaddy meeting Elliott Smith. "Wear You Down" is a nice cozy closer.

With a name that implies either fur balls or prepubescent fantasies, Meow Meow ends up delivering an impressively cohesive and affective album. Me likes.

-Barbara H

/sept 1st 2004/