Like a lot of our readers I have a great love of all things rockabilly, psychobilly and goth. And this ensemble certainly tick all of the boxes on paper, but I cannot shake the feeling that this record is ambling across well trodden ground to an obvious degree. Don’t get me wrong, the group’s core sound is quite unique, but like Eddie Spaghetti once said “you say cliché, I say classic”. I definitely do not speak for everyone.

The record starts off really promising with an interesting vibe, but four songs in without deviation from this formula….. It can get very grating to say the least. Opening track ‘she’s hot’ kicks off with a promising pace and has some killer guitar licks, but particularly vocal wise, never hits the next gear. The following track ‘Hollywood’s bleeding’ continues this stop-start approach, giving the listener some hooks but never really developing them further making the songs come across as a bit pedestrian as well as the fact that this second track and third track ‘you’re the kind of girl I need’ are pretty interchangeable to an almost boring degree.

As I say, I normally am a fan of the genres touched on this record, and possibly the band knows what is best for their bread and butter audience. But for this listener, everything, even down to the song titles seems a little too obvious eg: ‘graveyard blues’, ‘vampire shuffle’. Don’t get me wrong, having song themes like this is not a problem, it’s what the fundamentals of rock ‘n’ roll are all about. It’s just you have to have the excitement and the drive to back it up and this record is severely lacking.

Overall to a lot 69 Cats’ audience, this will be meat and potatoes rock ‘n’ roll, but to those casual visitors to this genre, this record may, unfortunately, be a one listen affair.