As indie pop became glossier and more fleshed out in the 1990s, few bands embraced its minimal, melancholy origins like the Cat’s Miaow. Formed in Melbourne in ’92 by songwriters Bart Cummings and Andrew Withycombe, they would soon be joined by singer Kerrie Bolton and drummer Cameron Smith. Mostly avoiding live gigs to concentrate on the recording studio, they churned out tunes like a hardcore band, releasing a litany of cassettes and singles stuffed with lo-fi, delicate pop songs rarely longer than two minutes. All of them were built on the foundation of quietly chiming guitars, brush-smacked drums, and Bolton’s crystalline singing that always seemed on the cusp of shattering, recounting tales of youthful heartbreak and longing. The band petered out by the end of the decade, exploring a more trip-hop/ambient sound under the name Hydroplane after Smith’s departure, with the Cat’s Miaow seemingly destined for obscurity. But in 2022, World of Echo issued some compilations that gave the band some overdue attention, leading to a reunion in 2023 and encouraging them to attempt something they had never done during their initial run: record an album.
Now almost 30 years after their last recordings, they’ve issued their full-length debut, When You Smiled and Turned Away. What has changed in the intervening years? Shockingly little. The band has slipped into their old style effortlessly, possibly thanks to how casual it was to begin with. If there’s any new dimension to their music it’s the clean, digital production that’s usurped their customary four-track, giving these songs a crisp sheen and pulling away from the bedroom-esque intimacy they used to contain. Bolton’s voice has roughened slightly in the intermeaning decades, now less angelic and more knowingly wry. Whereas a song like “Have You Done This Before?” would have had a pleading and delicate tone in their original incarnation, here it’s sung earnestly as opposed to bashfully at the ground.
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