CATAMOUNT – Public Displays Of Private Delusion

Catamount is a four-man Metal band hailing from Chicago, Illinois, and Public Displays Of Private Delusion is their newest independent release;. Prior to this, the band released a four-song EP in 2004 called Seven Million Years Too Late. The group formed in 2003, with its members having a fair amount of prior experience with other bands in their area.

Public Displays Of Private Delusion consists of seven tracks, and most of them are instrumental. A couple of songs feature brief, shouted-out vocal passages.

On the band’s Web site, Catamount describes their music as being “busy.” This is a pretty accurate description of the album’s sound; there’s a lot going on at any given moment. It’s hard to get bored listening to this CD.

Catamount’s two guitarists, Jordan Schultz and Matt Schneider, put down lots of chugging guitar riffs and some cool guitar parts throughout the album; none of the songs are really fast, but are groove-laden and have a heavy bottom end. Public Displays Of Private Delusion sounds a bit like avantgarde Modern Rock, a little like Sabbath, a bit like Stoner Rock, all laid out on top of a foundation of noisy, grinding guitars. The sound is a bit hard to accurately pin down; it’s one of those albums that’s easier to appreciate if you just listen to it rather than have someone try and describe it.

Public Displays Of Private Delusion still manages to maintain a sense of rhythm and melody underneath all the noise and guitar fuzz; the band knows how to write songs with lots of hooks and punch. The near-total lack of lyrics isn’t a big deal, although the album does have a tendency to blur together after a while due to a lack of words differentiating the songs. It would be interesting to know the stories behind the songs “The Legend Of Tits McGee” (this one’s a two-parter, by the way) and “George Papadapolis.” Whoever these people are, Catamount isn’t saying. We all know who/what “Sasquatch” is, even though he doesn’t even lend a cameo growl to the song the band wrote for him. But, he’s a hard beast to pin down.

If you’re into music that’s a bit off the beaten path, but still heavy, Catamount’s Public Displays Of Private Delusion is a pretty good album to spend some time with.