Cassette Review: Cougar On A Meth Binge / The Christy's "Empire Cave"

[$5 // Edition of 50 // https://cougaronamethbinge.bandcamp.com/album/empire-cave]

This split cassette consists of two artists who could both be considered folk punk, yet they still have enough differences between them that you could tell them apart and even perhaps like one more than the other.

Cougar On A Meth Binge (which is a cougar I never want to meet- and also one I hope is  related to cats more than Courtney Cox) is male and female vocals placed over an acoustic guitar and more.   Right away you'll think up several popular names and you'll be wrong because this doesn't really sound like any of that.   It's melodic and if I had to place it to an electric band only in an acoustic sense I would somehow find myself at Straylight Run.    It can be catchy, at least lyrically, and the musical aspect of it can also seem to come from the "Wildflowers" era of Tom Petty.    With some possible banjo notes this is not like what you've heard before and therefore are probably expecting but it is so much better.

On the flip side we have The Christy's who chose not to go with the spelling of the New Jersey governor and that's probably for the best.   This folk punk can be a little bit more on the emo side and it kind of reminds me of an acoustic version of The Benjamins.   One of these songs is about wanting to be a cat and I'm in no way arguing with him on that.    The last song however has this vibe of Neil Young's "Hey Hey" mixed with the popular guitar riff from Blur's "Song Number 2" only acoustic.   I'm not sure if I will be the only one who has these jump out like that, but I can hear that mix and it's actually a lot better than it reads on paper.

The idea behind this being "Empire Cave" is that it was recorded in a cave and I guess unless you're a bear that kind of takes away from the home recording sound, but still, the idea that someone went into a cave and recorded these songs is pretty neat.  I don't think there are any caves near me (at least that I can legally get to) and so the closest I could come to this would be a Walmart bathroom and, yeah, this is a lot better.