Grandaddy
Just Like the Fambly Cat
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Decrease Font SizeEditor's Review:
A 15-song farewell, Just Like the Fambly Cat is Modesto, CA’s
perennial next-big-thing officially giving up their indie rock dreams. With
mastermind Jason Lytle recording the bulk of Grandaddy’s fifth full-length
release alone, the album suffers from no creative myopia or delusions of grandeur.
It does have a distinct note of finality ingrained in its wistful balladry and
sighing mid-tempo arrangements, however, with Lytle setting his song cycle around
the imagery of things taken for granted until they’re gone. As the band
that never quite fulfilled their “American Radiohead” expectations,
Grandaddy’s now abbreviated 13-year run can be added to the list.
Following the straightforward fuzz pop of 2003’s Sumday, Fambly
Cat is a far more comprehensive statement. Not a stylistic departure in
any sense, but a retrospective of sorts, the album makes stops at every phase
of Grandaddy’s career, spanning lo-fi rock (“Jeez Louise”)
through windblown synth-pop (“The Animal World”) and pristine piano
balladry (“This Is How It Always Starts”). On the best tracks, all
of the elements intermingle, with the epic space whoosh, bells, gritty guitars
and lush swells of “Summer…It’s Gone” providing a compelling
example of what Lytle can do at the height of his powers. Breaking the aura
of loss and regret is the careening punk rock mess “50%” (worth
its inclusion when Lytle shouts “50% less work in 2006!”
in his wavering nasal croon) and “Where I’m Anymore,” a breezy
travelogue complete with a chorus of “meow, meow, meow.”
In the end, Fambly Cat isn’t quite as definitive or climactic
as one would hope for a band of Grandaddy’s stature. Though Lytle does
nothing here that he hasn’t done before, he has rarely sustained his focus
with such clarity for an entire album and few artists could execute an album
of such eclecticism and scope. Every artist deserves such a victory lap.
— Matt Fink
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 Record Label V2 Released May 2006 |
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