ERIC SCHROEDER, Cat's Game

Now it’s hard for me to be fully objective about the fiery guitarist, singer, storyteller/songwriter and rumbling good troublemaker Eric Schroeder, now fulfilling the wild promise of his 2024 full length debut Turned on the Stereo with his blissfully raw and raucous ultra-quick follow-up Cat’s Game. 

Typified by lines like “Lonesome heartache/Lonesome headache/Lonesome feeling. . .I suppose it takes a while til’ loneliness is peaceful” in the opening track “High and Low.” the album is, with a few hypnotic slower, tempo digressions, chock full of distortion filled laments, haunting, regret filled longings and bleak acceptance of his lonely fate (at least for a while), with a few shards of light on the always ready to burst into flames “Road to Recovery” after a brief but colorful “Summer in the Psych Ward,” where, he assures us, he “won’t be here long.”

Besides the searing, scintillating, clever hard truth lyrics, those biting, infectious melodies and the incendiary way Schroeder vibes with his always-a-bomb-going-off quartet (bassist Matt Scheussler, drummer Jake Richter, keyboardist Aidan Finn), I’m enamored of Cat’s Game because it recaptures everything I said about Schroeder last time out. I called the brilliant indie upstart a “wizened, world weary, struggling but never completely out of hope old soul…” and made mention of his complicated, unstable upbringing that inspires such powerful rock expressions infused with fragile emotions that need a cathartic outlet lest he succumb to despair.

May be a minor point, but as a recently converted feline fanatic, I’m also intrigued here by the album title – which does not correspond to any of the ten song titles or lyric within. But what an awesome cover. All that said, Schroeder’s on an intense, hyperactive journey of processing searing loss and burning desire while at the same time trying to stay sane and arrive at places in the heart when he can say, as on the Tom Petty-esque funked out crackler/thumper “I’ve Got Problems,” yeah, despite those problems, he’s “free as a bird” and even if he thinks of his lost love now and then, he’s essentially doing all right (or trying to convince himself or someone of that).

Other excellent fast rolling entry points to this sublime experience are the punchy, power packed wants her back badly song “Emily” (key lyric: “I long to be where the colors tease, and her love concedes”) and the artful fusion of bleakness/loneliness and harmonic whimsy that is “As I Sit Here in My Car.”