Black Metallic: Retro Review of Catherine Wheel's "Ferment"

Catherine Wheel

I remember driving early one morning in 1993 down the freeway in Salt Lake City, Utah.  My brothers and I were driving to Bluffdale for priesthood meeting.  We had X96 on the radio, Salt Lake's alternative radio station.  My brother Tony, who was always a metalhead, turned up the volume very loud when a certain song he liked came on.  It was my first time hearing "Crank" by Catherine Wheel.  I liked it.  It was hard and heavy, but the guitars were swirly and atmospheric.  For some strange reason, it reminded me of my favorite band, Cocteau Twins.

The next year, I had relocated to Mesa, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona.  On a visit, Tony gave me his copy of Catherine Wheel's second album, "Chrome".  I fell in love with this record.  To this day, it is still one of my favorite records.  I can listen to it over and over, and I usually break it out once a month for a listen.  It has a certain sound or characteristic about it - soft vocals, pounding, headbanging drum beats, and guitars set at ethereal distortion.  I didn't know what shoegaze was at the time, but I knew that I liked this sound.

I was working in a clean room at this time with a couple of guys that I had known for a while.  In 1995, one of them brought in "Happy Days", Catherine Wheel's third album.  I gave it a few listens and was singularly unimpressed.  It was a good rock album, but that dreamy feel, those guitar pedal effects and wash of white noise was gone.  The element that made "Chrome" so special was missing.  It was more of a straight-up rock album.  So for me, "Chrome" was enough.  It was this band's swansong.  And it was for other people as well.  Both Interpol and Death Cab For Cutie have cited "Chrome" as being a major influence.

In the present day, I was reading how the band's 1992 debut release, "Ferment" was actually their top-selling record, and their most shoegaze.  Curiosity got me, so I downloaded it.

The first song, "Texture", with its heavy bass line, reminds me a lot of Lowlife, former Cocteau Twins member Will Heggie's band.  This is definitely a shoegaze album, as demonstrated in the opalescent pieces, "Indigo Is Blue", the title track, "Ferment", and "Flower To Hide".  The best selections here are "I Want To Touch You", "Black Metallic", and my favorite, "She's My Friend".

This album is moody and textured, a good start for a good band.  However, it is not "Chrome".  It is not as angry, as heavy, or as emotional.  Whereas it is a good record, it will never hold the place in my heart as their sophomore album.  It seems as if they were still coming into their sound.  Still, it is not bad, and it will always be a pioneer effort for a genre that is beloved to me.''