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"Cursed
and Blessed"
By Dan Cairns
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We
seek her here, we seek her there. Yet, bizarrely, after a
fortnight's blanket media coverage, of Cerys Matthews, the
wild woman of Welsh rock, there is not a trace. In the blinking
of an eye - and on the eve of the release of the band's new
album - Catatonia's 32-year-old lead singer has performed
a vanishing act. Her timing - Papers, Scissors, Stone is released
tomorrow - is questionable. But Matthews has definitely gone
to ground. Not so much out to lunch (well, perhaps a bit of
that), as off the map entirely.
Geoff
Travis, the founder of Rough Trade Records and the man who
launched the Smiths, comes to the phone. The day before my
interview with Matthews is due to take place, it's clear that
something is not quite right in Cerys-land. First, her publicist,
in about the only call she has herself instigated in the course
of an increasingly frustrating month of negotiations, rings
to say that the meeting cannot possibly take place. Reminded
of the commitments she has previously made, the PR hands over
the task of discussing Matthews's no-show to Travis, now the
head of Catatonia's record company, Blanco y Negro.
Couched
in euphemism, Travis's explanation is both candid and cryptic.
"She drinks too much," says the weary-sounding label boss.
"It's a very difficult situation. I've been waiting for her
to realise that." Which situation he is referring to isn't
clear, and the confusion only deepens when he goes on to describe
Matthews's current crisis as "a cry for help" (an expression
heavy with connotations), before seemingly backtracking by
stating that "her life is not endangered".
If
it were the exception instead of the rule, Matthews's recent
collapse would have raised no more than an eyebrow or two
- excess, and the price those indulging in it pay, is hardly
front-page news in rock'n' roll. Yet the new drama comes only
18 months after the Welsh band hit the buffers in spectacular
fashion. Amid rumours of a Matthews breakdown, the band cancelled
a sold-out tour, which coincided with the dismal reception
accorded to their third album, Equally Cursed and Blessed.
This almost cussedly uncommercial record didn't contain anything
to match their breakthrough singles, Mulder and Scully and
the irresistible Road Rage, and it duly bombed.
Many
people are now asking if Matthews returned to the celebrity
and promotional fray sooner than was good for her fragile
equilibrium. Certainly, she seems ill equipped for resisting
temptation - her reputation for propping up the bar and burning
both ends of as many candles as she can seek out is, sadly,
not a case of tabloid exaggeration. So, why is nobody protecting
her from herself? And how did she come to throw herself back
into the deep end, where she may make a terrific, headline-grabbing
splash, but whose shark-filled waters have a nasty habit of
engulfing her?
Later,
the PR comes back to me. "Obviously, she drinks far too much,"
she says of her wayward client. "And you can only do that
for a certain amount of time." When I ask if she feels that
Matthews resurfaced too early, she snaps: "She wasn't summoned
to make the record - it's very much an album she's happy with
and involved with."
The
buzz in the biz tells a rather different story. In the weird
and bitchy world of rock promotion, many doubt the official
version. Cerys-watchers will have noted the singer's alleged
remarks to a Welsh newspaper some months ago, dismissing the
new album, and the overwhelming evidence of continued friction
between the singer and her former lover, Catatonia's guitarist
and principal songwriter, Mark Roberts. They will have noted,
too, the record's postponed release, now rescheduled for the
dead month of August. As one industry insider puts it: "August
is the month for good albums by unknowns and bad ones by established
acts."
If
Equally Cursed and Blessed was Catatonia's treading-water
album, then Papers, Scissors, Stone needs to be their comeback
record, a triumphant return to form, chock-full of enticements
to the million people who bought International Velvet. Matthews
recently described it as "like an electric blanket - put it
on when you're in bed and you'll never want to take it off".
It's nowhere near that good.
A
lot of this has to do with Roberts's oddly limited musical
vocabulary: lyrically, the album offers any number of tantalising
glimpses into the band's collective and individual psyches,
and the problems that led them to the brink of disintegration
18 months ago; and few singers today can invest a phrase with
as much meaning, pathos or innuendo than Matthews. The lines
"Go tell the captain there's no waters left to navigate/I
sailed them all for you. Go tell the engine room, stop stoking
up the fire/We're out of fuel" are just one example of lyrics
that seem inextricably linked to the band's calamities. But
musically, Catatonia are stuck in the same old groove.
The
production team of Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, whose
CVs include work with Elvis Costello, Morrissey and Madness,
have unquestionably earnt their money, buffing up the band's
sonic trademarks - spaghetti-western guitars, lush string
arrangements and swirling, anthemic choruses - into a dazzling
sheen. This pays rich dividends on the passionate new single,
Stone by Stone, and on tracks such as Fuel and Blues Song.
Yet the very thing that might have redeemed the album - the
pushing to the fore of one of contemporary music's most talented
and idiosyncratic singers - is instead overlooked in favour
of bludgeoning bombast.
The
most telling example is Imaginary Friend, which begins with
Matthews up close to the mike, singing in a voice that sounds
almost raw and broken, backed by a grand piano. A truly great
album would have homed in on this devastating vulnerability
- and, conversely, played to Matthews's strengths. Yet the
boys seem to know best, and the song is soon swamped in their
ham-fisted stadium rock.
Perhaps
the best thing that could happen now would be for Matthews
to take a proper break, confront her demons and return to
make what would surely be a sensational album - as a solo
artist. And, in the process, exchange notoriety for the renown
she richly deserves. This exceptional singer, so acute an
observer of human foibles and frailties, so self-laceratingly
self-aware, so fiercely articulate and intelligent, and so
hopelessly out of her depth, is far too special for anything
less.
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