Two Shoes

The Cat Empire's Two Shoes -- their second consecutive double platinum LP in their native Australia -- brings Australia's most dynamic musical export to the the US. Live music fans (and anyone at Bonnaroo this year) may already have had the opportunity to catch one of the band's legendary shows -- but until now recorded material was as hard to find as Vegemite. Looking for inspiration beyond the beaches of Melbourne, TCE journeyed to Havana, Cuba to record Two Shoes with producer/engineer Jerry Boys (R.E.M., Rolling Stones) in the studio where the Ry Cooder's Buena Vista Social Club LP was recorded. The result was a record that captures all the energy of a live band at its peak, but also sacrifices nothing in the way of songcraft. Compared to everything from Cake to Madness to Sublime, The Cat Empire's genre-bending is a trademark of the music scene in Melbourne. The band was founded in 1999 by vocalist/percussionist Felix Riebl and bassist Ryan Monro and quickly built up a massive following down under with its incendiary live shows, leading within two years to two double platinum releases on Virgin/EMI. Fueled by the internet word-of-mouth, the band has already sold out venues from Irving Plaza to the Troubadour. The band will headline an 11 date US tour in support of this LP at 500 -1000 cap venues.

For six guys from Melbourne, Australia, to travel half the world to record their second record indicates titanic success for their first. And that's what led the jazzed-up, funked-out popsters Cat Empire to a studio in Havana, Cuba, to follow up that million-selling debut. Here, the band takes its Latin leanings a step farther, creating room for what is billed as the Empire Horns--trombone, trumpet, and sax--in its driving, thriving beat. Lead vocalist Felix Riebl's witty intellect and dripping Aussie twang are the Cat's most distinguishing merits (see the Bob Marley love-fest of a title track and the first line of the offbeat "Sly": "If frizzy hair was a metaphor for festival time/Then this woman is a goddess of that festival shrine"). Yet compatriot Harry James Angus demands equal billing here, with contributions like the ska rave "Saltwater," the punkish memoir "The Car Song," and "Protons, Neutrons, Electrons"--an uproarious showtune of a song complete with delightful piano break and "zip-a-dee-doo" chorus. Still, co-stars aside, this is a complementary sextet that's seemingly comfortable with nearly any style of music--and willing to circle the globe to prove it. --Scott Holter