Media Diary Week 2

Catfish and the Bottlemen

 Over the past week I've been listening to the debut album 'The Balcony' by Catfish and the Bottlemen on repeat after it was recommended to me on Facebook not long before. Their genre of music is indie rock/rock therefore making their target audience any fan of this genre of music although I would recommend this to anyone. The band were formed in Llandudno in North Wales and lead vocalist, Van McCann, had moved from Australia at a young age with his family. It was in Australia where he came across a busker named 'Catfish the Bottlemen' who he credits for the inspiration of the name. The foursome are signed to the label Island and the album was released on September 15th 2014 after releasing a number of singles from the album throughout the past year. Singles include, 'Rango', 'Homesick' and 'Kathleen' which are also a few of my favourites from the album. The band are quickly rising to fame with their album charting to No.1 as the most bought album in stores that week and also with their tour selling out in numerous venues across the UK.

My first reaction after listening to the album for this first time was that there isn't a single bad song on the album and I couldn't fault it. One thing I would say is that McCann's vocals can often be buried beneath the instrumentation during choruses slightly. One of my favourites include 'Tyrants' which is the crescendo of the album, starting off fairly slow before kicking in abruptly.

Some people may react differently to this album if they have a different taste in music such as pop for example. I have quite a broad taste when it comes to music therefore I would still recommend this album to anyone. Another reason why people may react differently is due to some minor explicit moments throughout the album. Although some may argue that this album is nothing new when comparing it to other albums of the same genre, the instrumentation and lyrics can't be faulted. Overall I can soon see this band quickly rising to stardom with more tour dates soon to sell out and millions of people yet to hear the album.