Catherine Wheel
Wishville

THE REVIEW

Grasp all, lose all, or so it has always been said. But established as it may be, one must wonder what one can grasp who, on the contrary, does not know at all what they desire... And what does one who does not know what they want but believes they do, achieve according to the proverbs? Anyone familiar with the Catherine Wheel, after listening to "Wishville," would not be able to grasp the intentions of Dickinson and company. I shall try, and venture: on one hand to reconcile with their past and on the other to push even further into the depths of the pop song...

The fact remains that when these former shoegazers "reached" grunge, grunge was at its swan song; after transforming into an indie band, the national "giants" of Britpop were either dissolving or more commonly becoming monuments (i.e., caricatures) of themselves. What benchmark, then, was left available for a band that had long left behind its brilliant past of "Ferment" and "Chrome"? Perhaps the British pop song of the good old days, or at least so it would seem from the low-key ballad "My Dog," the Ziggy Stardust-like sounds of "Idle Life," or yet again the psychedelia of the closing "Creme Caramel," evocative yet predictable.

And it cannot be explained otherwise the fact that in "Wishville" a rock track is missing, a piece to chart is missing, an easy indie-rock to make teenagers jump is missing. At the height of generosity, Catherine Wheel places a shoegaze-blues in the opening "Sparks Are Gonna Fly" and reclaims the remnants of their youth by performing "Lifeline" and "Ballad Of A Running Man," tracks "from another time" (that of their debut), but performed with arrangements and tastes of any pop band.

An album that marks the end of a band in the simplest and most perfect way: a natural death, a "physical" ending that coincides precisely with the inspiration's end. A parabola that eventually reaches zero.