Cathy Davey - 'Something Ilk' (Regal) Released 23/08/04

"I don’t listen to a lot of music, because if I do, it goes in deep.  I get very influenced."  'Something Ilk' is an interesting offering from the debutante, interesting because on it Davey seems to be suffering from schizophrenia; not exactly sure of who she is Cathy just sounds like everyone else.

The album opens with ‘Come Over Here’ it’s a good song, and although Davey is not the greatest vocal talent in the world, it doesn’t really matter, because the haunting and slightly creepy melody is enough to enchant listeners. ‘Trade Secrets’ is another of the stand out tracks on the album, with a Bollywood style opening it’s a song that certainly keeps you awake, unlike a lot of the other samey samey dreamlike songs, like ‘About Time’ which would have been better suited to the confines of a wedding scene on a cheesy Amercian soap. 

The only problem with Something Ilk,’ is that after the fourth song in, we’ve heard what Cathy Davey has to offer and the album never really recovers.  It’s almost as if Cathy continues to plod along reproducing different variations of the same songs, at times it’s hard to decipher where one song ends and another begins and suffers from a lack of innovation.

‘Swing It’ is perhaps the albums most interesting addition.  Despite being recorded in the studio it actually sounds like it was recorded whilst half asleep in bed, an idea that’s simply reinforced by the ambiguous lyrics. ‘Holy Moly’ is another interesting one that starts off awfully, but steadily gets better and better, by the end it’s actually not a bad song, unfortunately all her hard work is undone by dreadful songs like ‘Sugar’ and ‘Save Button’ which will no doubt encourage an increase of sales for earplugs.