Dylan Rodrigue - Cat's Game

California calling! An empathetic fusion of country, indie and alt-rock.

The “singer-songwriter” tag often carries a lot of baggage and can provoke a bunch of unwarranted assumptions. Bob Dylan's protest years and the sensitive, confessional musings of James Taylor and Jackson Browne, as good as they were, have left a mark on expectations from the term. But the truth is that singer-songwriters, much like folk music itself, represent an extremely broad church. It's a point encapsulated on Cat's Game, the debut album by Dylan Rodrigue.

Forget the cliché of one bloke with an acoustic guitar singing of personal pain (though Rodrigue is adept at that too). Cat's Game is a record that moves from full-steam indie-rock, punkish rampages, a few alt-rock shapes and even throws in a charming acoustic duet. All in all a varied musical selection box and like some of those chocolates consumed over the winter holidays it's a album with hard outer edges but with a soft emotional centre. Empathetic post-rock may be the most apt description if you're looking for caterogisation, most strongly evidenced on 'Living In Color', a call for more nuanced understanding and less polarisation. Other standouts include 'Some Kind Of Heaven' which sounds like a long-lost acoustic track by Big Star, and the downbeat indie rock of 'Minimize The Damage'.

So that's the songwriting but what about the singing? Rodrigue's voice is a distinct and unique instrument in itself. Lived-in without being overly gravelly, very likable and utterly convincing. His is a voice that favours passion over perfection. Fans of Pavement, Elliott Smith and Kurt Cobain will find in Rodrigue a similarly talented and distinctive artist.

To become a songwriter when your name is Dylan is a tough gig – after all there's a lot to live up to there! Which may or not have been at the back of Rodrigue's mind when making the video for 'Self-Love'. There's a sly nod to his Bob-ness in the video with Rodrigue using the card and caption technique pioneered by the-artist-formerly-known-as-Zimmerman on the promo film for 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'. You can enjoy the video below. Enjoy!

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