Finland’s wonderful Cats On Fire have returned with a new song named after the Dutch city. They’ve even written a short poem to go with it:

“Cats on fire anno 2009
not your favourite vintage wine.
Slightly bitter in taste
now bottled and encased”

Don’t worry, the lyrics of the new song are far better than that, focusing on loneliness and disillusionment and wanting to be tried at The Hague. Seriously. The lyrics are as sharp and barbed as ever, with the lovely chorus “These are my ideals, if you don’t like them, I might have to change them. My way is the right way if there’s a lover in the end. The morals of my parents, they rang hollow after all – nowadays I live just to appear a bit above my friends”.

It’s a much quieter, more relaxed tone than most of their back catalogue, but it works. Perhaps it’s an augury of the sound of their next album, or perhaps it’s a one-off bookend. I suspect it’s the latter. Recently, bands seem to be keener on one-off songs than they have for a while (cf. Spoon’s “Got Nuffin’”, which I’m told will be on their next album, Voxtrot’s “Trepanation Party” and “Berlin Without Return”, which probably won’t, and Destroyer’s “Bay Of Pigs”, which I’m positive won’t be on his next album). Whether it is or not, I’m very excited by the prospect of any new material from them – when I saw them earlier this year, they mostly played songs from The Province Complains, which, while an incredible album, is now several years old. They’re no longer just Felt soundalikes, and a new direction could illuminate sides of them at which they have only hinted before in songs like “The Sharp End Of A Season”.

Backed with a decent demo version of “Borders Of This Land” from Our Temperance Movement, it’s available from the Cosy Recordings website. Or you can click on the link below for it, if you’re too lazy to go there.

MP3:
The Hague