Catch 22 Album: “Permanent Revolution”

At first I did not know what to expect from this album. I was a bit skeptical at first when I heard Catch 22 was releasing a concept album. As soon as I popped the CD in I was blown away. This is an entirely new Catch 22. There is so much energy on this CD, and the lyrics are like poetry. As each track progresses you can envision the story playing out.

The thing I love most about this album is how there are fast, loud tracks followed by slower, layed back ones.

The album ends with a beautiful acoustic song where we get to see how good Ryan Eldred's voice truly is. His voice was a bit weaker on Dinosaur Sounds, however this time there is a huge improvement. He might have one of the best voices in ska right now. I love the final line in that last song..."A life spent doing less than all you can would be a waste..."

Skapunkers Catch 22 are back with a concept album about the life and times of Leon Trotsky. It's a bizarre career turn for a band that's been accused of releasing flat and uncatchy albums of late. Instead of reminding fans why they should still care, Catch puts out a Noam-Chomsky-readin', Che-Guevara-shirt-wearin', oh-so-brainy history lesson set to music. The vocals are horrendous, but as far as concept albums on Leon Trotsky go, the music isn't bad. They pull it off with a good amount of upbeat horns and beats ("Opportunity" being a great standout). I'm impressed by the ambition, and the execution is surprisingly decent, but in the end I don't listen to Catch 22 to be lectured about socialism.

I picked this up solely as an impulse buy. I had read that one of my favorite bands of all time, Streetlight Manifesto, had evolved out of this group and I was curious to sort of see where they had come from. I had no idea of Catch 22's discography, other than Keasbey Nights, and didn't know where this fell in their order of release, it was simply sitting on the shelf at my local shop, so I figured I'd give it a try.

The first time I listened through it I thought there was something a little odd about but I really liked the instrumentation and lyrics. After not listening for a week, having lent it to my brother, I researched the album a bit and found out it was a concept album, and one that told the story of real life communist Leon Trotsky. When I got my CD back I began listening through the album while reading the liner notes and I began reading up on Trotsky, a very interesting experience and it propelled toward buying the rest of their albums.

This is easily one of their very best pieces of work, along with Dinosaur Sounds, but unlike the previous album this is a concept album so some songs don't stand so well on their own. The instrumental structure is much more complex and better played out than anything they've done to date and the lyrics carry more meaning and content than the glut of pop music that is the kudzu of the music world.

Whether you like Ska or not, or nothing about it, this is still an excellent album to pick up.

What do you hear whenever someone talks about Catch 22? "It's not as good as it used to be." Frankly, I think their old stuff sucked, but that's beside point. Don't think about Tomas Kalnoky when you think of Catch 22--he's gone off to do his own thing. While Tomas Kalnoky went off to record exactly the same crap that he's been recording for the past 10 years, Catch 22 went from a bland, overly-staccato ska band with a whiney-sounding lead singer to a band of musical geniuses who aren't afraid to step out from under the "ska" banner to make some truly amazing music. Do I care that it's about Leon Trotsky? Not really...I don't think about the political message while I'm too preoccupied with the fun melodies, awesome vocals (Ryan Eldred is ten times the frontman Tomas Kalnoky will EVER be), and boatloads of energy that occupy the contents of this CD.

Why do bands change? Because they get bored with their old stuff. That's a quick answer to a "complicated" question.