Taking a break from the music scene for more than ten years Alpha Cat has returned with an album that could reignite her career. Thatched Roof Glass House (Aquamarine Records) is the title of Alpha Cat’s newly minted release, and from the first song to the very last it’s full of some unexpected but pleasant surprises. Bordering between the genres of Adult Album Alternative and Alternative Rock music the seven songs that comprise this compilation are cunning, clever, and at times, cutting.
Opening the Thatched Roof Glass House set is Mockingbird. Beginning with several seconds of utter silence before any voices or instruments are heard helps create a tension that is only resolved when a lilting electric guitar riff emerges in the brief introductory section to the verses and choruses which will follow. Alpha Cat, whose real name is Elizabeth McCullough, has a voice that’s a cross between Joni Mitchell and Amy Winehouse. It’s unquestionably feminine on the surface, but with an underlying acerbic quality about that is highlighted by the way that McCullough phrases her lyrics. The arrangement is steeped in richly layered self-harmonies that help create a textured backing for her lead vocals here.
The next track, Black Hole, heads into some seriously dark territory. The opening verse proclaims, “I’ve fallen into a black hole/looked like your heart/felt like my soul/now I’ve got nowhere to go/from this side out looks like the end of the world”. Referring to the information provided in Alpha Cat’s press kit this tune is clearly and unquestionably autobiographical. While working in 2006 on a yet-to-be released album that was to be called Venus Smile, McCullough fell into her very own real life black hole. After losing her voice she suffered a damaging emotional and psychological breakdown. Forced to place the unreleased LP on hold while she endured hospitalization and engaged in various conventional and experimental treatments, including electro convulsive shock treatment, it wasn’t until 2013 she gained partial relief that was still accompanied by extreme anxiety and fear. To cope with this stress she self medicate with alcohol. This only exacerbated the underlying problems plaguing her.
McCullough explained that when she wrote Black Hole she’d recently read how astronomers had theorized that one could possibly escape a real black hole in outer space only by going all the way through it until you emerge from the other side. It’s quite the metaphor for transformation and perhaps the reason she ends the song by singing, “But you got to go deeper, it’s the only way out, only way out…” Now that’s some really, really, seriously deep, dark stuff!
The mood lightens a bit with Mona Lisa in a Comic Book. It’s a tongue-in-cheek change up that’s a collection of self depreciating conundrums and insightful contradictions. This is followed by the title track and then the haunting ode to 9/11, One Day the Sun Came Up. The penultimate number here is Every Day You Break My Heart. As with Black Hole we’re left with the impression the author has once more entered into her own autobiographical territory. After all, who is better than yourself at breaking your own heart? It’s a brooding, melancholy piece that is like looking in the mirror the morning after a night of too many unwise choices and actions.
The closer here, Reconsider Me, is a completely unanticipated offering. It’s a reworking of a Warren Zevon composition that’s as insanely sad as it is sweet. It’s at this point here at the end that Alpha Cat goes for the sentimental jugular vein and slices into it like a skilled surgeon. Worked by any other artist this cover tune could leave a saccharine like aftertaste in the aural palette of most listeners. McCullough doesn’t leave us feeling as if she just played our emotional heartstrings just like a fiddle, instead we’re left with the impression she’s opened up her own vulnerabilities to us in such a way that we have no other choice than to be left in debt to her for the trust she’s shared.
In closing I want to give a tip of my hat to the cavalcade of hired guns and studio musicians that singer/songwriter/instrumentalist/producer Elizabeth McCullough, or perhaps I should simply say Alpha Cat, has brought together on this production. There’s Fred Smith (Blondie and the band Television), Doug Pettibone (Lucinda Williams, John Mayer), Reggie McBride (Elton John), Chris Butler (The Waitresses), Jason Harrison Smith (Albert Lee, Kelly Sweet, Ian Andersen) and engineer/co-producer Jon Mattox behind the sound console. The album was mixed and mastered by post-production legend Brett (Cosmo) Thorngren. Now that’s a pretty serious team in to unite under any roof.
