Cat Be Damned Premieres “Drown,” A Bleak Rock Song That Sounds Like Summer
It’s off the vividly titled Daydreams In A Roach Motel, out this month.
Cat Be Damned is Erik Phillips, a Virginia singer-songwriter. His shoestring rock songs buzz at a low frequency, like a flickering porch light. "Drown," a pretty track from his new album, pairs a soft melody with bleak lyrics. Over a couple minutes, it drifts through the sort of rural, sad, and vaguely religious spaces that songwriters like Mat Cothran or Nicole Dollanganger often inhabit. Jesus walked in places where you're gonna drown instead, Phillips sings, lazy-sounding. According to an email from him to The FADER, inspiration for the track struck amidst the delirium-inducing heat of a Virginia summer:
"Drown" came to me in a moment of near-possession on a very hot day last summer while I hung out by the Rappahannock River in Fredericksburg, Virginia. It's heavy with an indistinct feeling of guilt that carries an emotional and also physical weight. The words get into spiritual and bodily injury, but I think the track itself is the gentlest one on the record, which sort of counteracts the lyrical weight.
Cat Be Damned's eight-song album, Daydreams In A Roach Motel, is out May 20 via Joy Void.