Everyone is someone’s monster. That’s the premise of New Orleans musical duo Kimberly Kaye and Michael Cerveris, and their band Loose Cattle, on their new album. Although it could have been the theme for a Halloween release, the pair focused not on the monsters but on how people deal with them and, sadly, how society sometimes doesn’t deal with them. Musically the record sits somewhere between the indie power pop of the 90’s and 21st century country rock. Backed by the rhythm section for Alex Chilton and then The Iguanas, and featuring fiddler Rurik Nunan from The Whiskey Gentry and Cracker, it’s less about the band having a single style and more about applying what works for the song.
The CD opens with Further On, a country-tinged indie rock number lamenting how the pandemic could have been the enemy that brought us all together, but instead served to just drive the wedges deeper. Another REM-influenced cut is Cheneyville. It has a Cajun flavor to an unfortunately-too-common tale of a teenage runaway that ends up pregnant and dead, with a finality to the chorus of “she’s never going back to Cheneyville.” Here’s That Attention You Ordered is likewise more lighthearted instrumentally than lyrically. There’s a hopeful hint of revenge to the telling of a misogynistic pillar of the community who just doesn’t get it. Joanne is back in the power pop domain in a Lady Gaga song about a lost loved one, and features Lucinda Williams on background vocals. Speaking of Williams, the band does an outstanding cover of her Crescent City.
The second half of the CD, or second disc if you’re into your vinyl, focuses less on an individual’s tale and instead offers encouragement from the success so many people have fighting their own monsters. Before We Begin is a country rock shout-out to all the loved ones lost during the pandemic and to the essential workers who kept the world stitched together. Not Over Yet is a driving rock-and-roll tribute to the incredible resistance of all the people of New Orleans throughout the myriad of natural disasters, big and small, that are part of life in the bayou. The Shoals is also about resilience, set this time in Muscle Shoals, and features Patterson Hood as the voice of the river demon (and also on guitar). Big Night Out is a country rock ballad that could have the subtitle of “middle aged woman blues.” When Kaye asks, “whatever happened to Super Girl”, it’s an ironic acceptance that maybe life is better when the delusions of youth are gone.
With a musical theater Grammy and a couple of Tony’s under his belt, not to mention a stint as Bob Mould’s guitarist, Michael Cerveris could have gone down any of a number of musical pathways. Fortunately he fell in with Kaye and they made New Orleans their new base. That city’s cacophony of styles formed Loose Cattle’s indie country power pop sound and for a breathtaking introduction to it there’s no better place to start than their third album, Someone’s Monster.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.