The Cat Empire

So Many Nights

(Velour)

Record Review by Sean P. Lambert

There’s a lot of music happening on this disc. On any given song you might find cellos, violins, a horn section, and even timbales. At 15 tracks, there’s certainly enough of a sonic cross-section to explore whatever musical ideas The Cat Empire wanted to get across. Why don’t I like it more then? Maybe because the soulful sound they seem to be striving for comes off too watered down and peppy all at once. It’s like G. Love and Special Sauce updated for more big band savvy ears. The turntable scratching sounds excessive throughout and should have been barred from the studio but is unfortunately given equal time among the other solos and backing instrumentation. The horn section is clearly the greatest strength of the album and carries the production through. The whole thing could have been dramatically improved with more adept lead vocals and a less is more approach to contemporary indie production.