Rainer Maria - Catastrophe Keeps Us Together

Rating

single starsingle starsingle starsingle star

RIYL

Rilo Kiley
Death Cab For Cutie
Metric
Sunny Day Real Estate

Tracklist

1. Catastrophe
2. Life of Leisure
3. Burn
4. Bottle
5. Terrified
6. Cities Above
7. Already Lost
8. Clear and True
9. I'll Make You Mine
10. Southpaw
11. I'll Keep It with Mine

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Having formed over a decade ago, Rainer Maria never seemed to get the credit and recognition they deservedly strived for. While it’s difficult to predict the buzz and success the band’s newest album Catastrophe Keeps Us Together will create, Rainer Maria have earned the right to be a household name in the indie-pop and emo-rock realm.

Catastrophe Keeps Us Together is the band’s first studio album since 2003’s Long Knives Drawn, first for the über-small Grunion Records, and finds the trio in surprisingly impressive form. Vocalist, bassist, and front-woman Caithlin De Marrais utilizes her beautiful voice towards gorgeous, original melodies, while not relying on it so heavily as to negate her conscious, intelligent lyrics.

Rainer Maria opens with “Catastrophe,” the inspiration for the album, and shows signs of a brilliant indie-pop-rock album right from the start, through well-crafted song arrangements, clearly the work of a veteran band. Throughout the course of the album, Rainer Maria, which also includes Kyle Fischer and William Kuehn, find the right balances between delicacy and power, strength and weakness, and confusion and confidence. The rocking tracks, like “Life of Leisure,” “Bottle,” and “Already Lost” are equally emotional and memorable as the softer tracks like, “Burn” and “Terrified.”

Accompanied by some crisp, tight production from Grammy Award-winning producer Malcolm Burn that does the band justice, Rainer Maria have never sounded more cohesive and united as a trio in their long, impressive career. Rainer Maria is an honest band that undoubtedly loves to make music, and if Catastrophe Keeps Us Together is any indication to the band’s future, then we have a lot to look forward to.

--Kamran Rouzpay

Author

Kamran
Last updated: 09/29/2009 08:54PM

Comments

Roncag
04/27/2006
07:15PM
Age: 32
Location
Anytown USA
I absolutely love this cd. I don;t think it tops knives, but track two is one of their very best.

You play to win the game.