Hourglass | The Science of Catfish and the Bottlemen

Catfish and the Bottlemen are the type of band that I have always meant to check out but never really got around to it, that was until about 4 months ago when I finally invested in their highly acclaimed debut album 'The Balcony'.

According to Ben Homewood of NME, headman vocalist Van McCann's "vocal style is similar to The Kooks' frontman Luke Pritchard", which I think is a massive compliment seeing as The Kooks have released such memorable songs such as 'Naïve' and 'She Moves In Her Own Way'.  However to me, the band's individual sound is the perfect mixture of 'Favourite Worst Nightmare' Arctic Monkeys and occasionally Foo Fighters, obviously their sound is polysemic and can be interpreted in different ways, which is an concept that probably a lot of bands aim for.

Above is Catfish and the Bottlemen's debut album cover for 'The Balcony', which was released on September 14, 2014, and made it to #10 on the UK album chart. On the 9th of January 2015, 'The Balcony' was awarded a gold certification from the British Phonographic Industry.

The album tracklist features singles such as 'Kathleen', 'Cocoon' and 'Homesick', which all individually have done phenomenally well and massively compliment the album, encouraging the audience of radios such as 'BBC Radio 1' and 'Capital' (who both regularly play them) to listen to Catfish more. However, a song that was particularly illuminating to me on first album-listen-through was 'Hourglass', a track that could easily be overlooked by the lovers of indie rock and roll, a beautiful duet of musical genres, demonstrated by the singles. 

However, 'Hourglass' possesses a certain romantic but yet intimate aura that immediately radiates and differentiates alongside the other tracks (I say the 'other' tracks like they rest of the tracklist is bad, which would be completely and utterly wrong) . The song itself explores the sexual frustration and craving for a love interest when they are distant from us, and the wandering of a mind when thinking about the return of a lover.  Now, when we, the target audience, think of the word "hourglass", it could go both ways; some of us could think of the Disney Princess Jasmine trapped in an hourglass and Aladdin coming to the rescue, and the some less Disney obsessed (if that's possible) would think that it refers to the iconic outline of a woman, a hegemonic stereotype agreed by modernist culture because of people like Kim Kardashian and 'Betty Boop'. However, this title is completely ambiguous and could allude to all different types of things, but seeing as love and lust are common themes for many songs, the figure of a woman is a pretty good bet. (another interpretation could be that the band are quite literally exploring the idea that measuring time until a lover or love interest comes back into their lives is tedious). This title ,without delay, prepares the audience for a love song (sadly not a dedication to Aladdin). 

According to Gillian Dyer's psychology of advertising (Advertising as Communication Routledge 1988) advertisers or any mediated text (so any text edited or published) uses lines of appeal and aspirations which we all, as a culture capital, aim and aspire for. One of the lines of appeal is "Successful romance and love", the 'international dream' if you will -  so already this song is subconsciously appealing to many of us. Furthermore, listening to McCann poetically explore the aspect of missing a loved one in a contemporary vocal sense, enables the entire audience listening to relate as it's something many of us have been through or will go through at some point in our lives. This achieves a mass target appeal, and suddenly the pound signs are tallying for the Catfish boys. So, the concept of the song attracts a mass audience, however the genre of the band enables the alternative vibe to it, rather than the pop culture vibe of Taylor Swift love songs (not that there is anything wrong with Taylor Swift - Blank Space is a hit). 

This theme of missing a loved one hits a sense of nostalgia to a wide variety of people and awakens a repressed memory of previous loves or a current one that's away, leaving the audience with this ambiguous bitter sweet feeling. 

(Photo credits to Clash Music) Catfish and the Bottlemen pose for classic black and white image

This innocent and sweet reading contrasts with the bad boy image and attitude of the band, suggested by the explicitity of the lyric: "dreams of you fucking me all the time". This entices the audience as we see a very private side of love which is normally locked behind closed doors (literally ha) - we could potentially become subconsciously overcome by curiousity about who this mystery lover is...

Something that probably every song in existence by every artist in existence  (from Nicki Minaj to Elvis Presley) does is use the generic word "you", directly addressing and involving the audience but never stating who the "you" is aimed at.  It's entirely polysemic and is purposefully used to represent the concept of love interest rather than personal internet, hence when McCann states that he has "dreams of you fucking me all the time" - this is not personal as it lacks a sense of individuality, meaning that he could be talking about literally anyone listening. 

'Hourglass' is simplistically beautiful, with McCans raw voice, the guitar playing by Johnny Bond and occasional drums by Bob Hall. This raw sound creates an acoustic atmosphere, which is undeniably more personal and intimate, as if the band are dedicating this song to "you" rather than recording in a top notch studio. This heartfelt love note is a perfect addition to the album, and I think a particularity special song. 

Thank you for reading. 

Carys x