The Cat Empire
Two Shoes

THE REVIEW

Second work for the Australian band with the ever so unique name, dated 2005 and entirely recorded at Egrem Studios in Havana (yes, the ones of Compay Segundo and “Buena Vista Social Club”), the album has earned the six artists from Melbourne a double platinum disc in their homeland and has allowed them to make a definitive breakthrough on the European and world music scene.

“Two Shoes” is a really valid work, a nice cocktail of reggae, hip-hop, jazz, ska, and Cuban rhythms, a mix of different influences and genres that blend perfectly without any smudge, without the slightest sense of disharmony or discord.

But the greatest merit of this album is another: the cheerful vitality that permeates it, highly engaging, able to make you forget any problem or worry for 58 minutes and 50 seconds, and damn it to school, to study, to sports, to stupid people, to the thousand commitments for which 24 hours are barely enough, damn it all, at least for this little hour.

And so off we go, I dive straight in, and here we go with “In My Pocket” and its nanananananaaaa, or the amusing “The Car Song”, the title track “Two Shoes”, and I find myself dancing to the Latin American rhythms of “Sol Y Sombra”, hopping to the choruses babbling zip-a-dee-doo (listen to believe) in “Protons, Neutrons, Electrons” and then spinning to the lively ska of “Saltwater”, all the way to “The Night That Never Ends”, the last track, thankfully, I could have worn myself out.

There it is, I’ve had my break, I’ve unplugged, fooled the nervous breakdown once again, but that’s enough for now, I have to get back to everything I sent to hell an hour ago.

And the consistency? Oh well, screw it too, just for today.

[Curiosity: check out the band’s logo, it’s cute too.]