Those paying close attention to these pages will remember The Catburgers as a once-lost indiepop group from Edinburgh who had a brief but sadly fated flirtation with Dan Treacy’s Dreamworld label and some passing association with Swell Maps’ Jowe Head. In 2022, a tape and then 7” emerged of the previously unreleased Dreamworld session, a brief glimpse into lost opportunity that I assumed was the full extent of the band’s recorded output. Well, that assumption was wrong. Slumberland, for which there can be a none-more-perfect label for this kind of jangle-directed action, have rolled their sleeves up and dug a little deeper to uncover a full collection of recordings that now provide us with a debut album of sorts. Like that previously heard session, these nine tracks perfectly capture the times (and The Times, quite possibly), a C86 psych-jangle offensive with unabashedly fey vocals that expresses obvious kinship with TV-P, The Field Mice and another previously-forgotten 80s outfit, Magic Roundabout (coincidentally, in an ode to youthful nostalgia, they’ve also a song that lists a range of cult children’s TV shows, as brazen a confection of indiepop credentials as I’ve heard). Quite the time capsule all in all, and an undeniably authentic expression of their era, ebullient but cut through with a subtle melancholia, and yet seemingly free of cynicism. The hope doesn’t always kill you - sometimes it allows you to live again. Here The Catburgers are, finally.
FFO: Television Personalities, The Pastels, Field Mice, The Cat’s Miaow
