Weekly Review: Catch-22 – Permanent Revolution
hey yall! this week for the weekly review, we’re listening to 2006’s Permanent Revolution, by Catch-22!
i have listened to Catch-22’s first album as part of a previous listening project, but havent checked out any of their other music, so i was very excited to dig into this one.
on first few listens, i thought this was a neat record with tracks about revolutionary politics – i liked the hopeful, inevitable vibe of The Spark, i really enjoyed A Minor Point for this line in the chorus – “critics cry of bloody days / but people still die anyway”, and while i didnt particularly like Alma Ata i did appreciate where it was coming from.
it did take me a bit to get used to Pat Kays’ vocals here, but they definitely grew on me i really liked the kinds of ska-punk theyre laying down here, and its effective the places they break form (ie: the Prologue and Epilogue are solid bookends, and i really like the more reggae vibes of The Spark, esp as the chorus sings about roots, haha).
somewhat oddly, i discovered, Spotify trims the dates that are intended to be in the titles off of these songs, which hides the concept behind the record – the tracks here go over the life of Leon Trotsky, from his time working in Lenin’s newspaper (Iskra, or Spark), to his time in the USSR, to his exile and assassination, and the tracks correspond to important dates in his life – for example, A Minor Point (1922) has the date of the founding of the Soviet Union, and On the Black Sea (1924) is, yes, about the passing of a friend and mentor, but is specifically about Lenin’s death. it’s neat, and while if i was more familiar with Trotsky’s life i’d probably have picked up on it sooner, i think its cool that it kinda functions both ways well!
and then i realized that a completely different historical musical narrative has obliterated a lot of how id have perceived this if i’d had thst framing up front and how, in many ways both good and bad, this is communist ska punk Hamilton.
faves – Prologue, The Spark (1902), A Minor Point (1922), Opportunity (1940)
dislikes –
Permanent Revolution – 7/10
the suggestion queue is currently empty, so i’ll be taking next week off, and then there are a few records coming out soon that i’ll likely cover in the weekly slot – in the meantime, please let me know what album you’d like me to review below!
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