Starting off
Sleepy with a roaring wash of guitars and a lyric that begins, "Hey motherf*cker/Hey superstar" doesn't exactly help
Catherine shake the
Smashing Pumpkins Jr. tag that it was stuck with from the start. Still, it's much more accurate to describe
Catherine as a band drawing on a lot of the same influences as that other group rather than trying to clone them, even with
Billy Corgan doing some of the production.
Neil Jendon is a slightly lighter (and perhaps technically better, if only just) singer than
Corgan, while the guitars betray a more general shoegazer influence than shows up in
the Pumpkins, beyond a joint appreciation of
My Bloody Valentine's sonic stun. "It's No Lie" is a fantastic number, one of
Sleepy's best, with a soaring chorus over the feedback din, while the closing title track lets the quintet kick up an open-ended jam after a quiet, almost wistful start.
–
Ned Raggett, Rovi