Catherine Wheel - Happy Days CDs • Vinyl Records • LPs • Music Albums

since their 1992 American debut, Ferment.

Over that album's iron-fisted backbeat, guitarists Rob Dickinson and Brian Futter spray-painted a 3-D day-glo rainbow through songs like the android sex fantasy "Black Metallic," the cut that raised their band from cultdom. For 1993's Chrome, they threw dirt on the palette to create bitter sugar like "Crank," a spray of tuneful noise with lyrics about isolation. On Happy Days the melodies come to the fore in the warm whine of Futter's solo in "Shocking" and in Dickinson's vocals, which are full of the dynamic tics and dramatic phrasing that define a great pop singer.

"Eat My Dust You Insensitive Fuck" is the perfect Catherine. Wheel number. Breathy vocals, too pretty for such fanged irony, intertwine with a gently minimal guitar melody, supported by spare bass. A growling harmonica approaches, stealthy as a tiger, then slinks off. Wah-wah bleats and vaporizes. An organ sneaks around as Dickinson's ascending notes twist the title into a sing-along climax. Finally, a scream cuts the air, reminding us that this band's feedback-streaked fairy world has land mines. (RS 710)

TED DROZDOWSKI