Catfish Haven are named for bandleader George Hunter's childhood home (a trailer park) and their music deals in hand claps, long necks, hard women, and that eternal American rock'n'roll promise, a slice of interstate transcendence lying in wait beyond the next off-ramp. Hunter-- singer, songwriter and lead guitarist-- is the voice behind these shouts and promises, and as such a lighthouse for all the thematic, compositional, and tonal colors of Devastator, the band's second full-length. Seemingly every moment lives and dies on his voice, such as when he dashes through durable 4/4 roadhouse stomps and roars, "I've been handed to the dogs before / Make my bed on someone else's floor" on "Are You Ready". Hunter's bronzed, baritone howl is so vivid, and hearkens back to so many classic rock voices, to listen to him is to submerge yourself in nostalgia: Joe Cocker's flecked grit, Billy Gibbons' spelunking caterwaul, even John Fogerty's emotional grace through vocal tails, valleys and peaks.
Bassist Miguel Castillo and drummer Ryan Farnham aren't weak, nor unsatisfactory, just handcuffed. Devastator expands the band's sound beyond their previous set up, introducing saxophone, keyboards, backing vocals, harmonica and banjo, and, frankly, Castillo and Farnham have less to do. Basslines are kept simple, kicks and fills are tamped down. It's the new toys that draw attention. "Buying My Time" revisits a harmonica riff before each chorus as Farnham just dutifully (and monochromatically) works a snare. The title track's coda weaves in blustery saxophone whines, leaving only itself and Hunter's guitar crashes to soak up all the acoustic space. After a while, the album begins to sound more like a studio playground for Hunter and his new tools than the traditional set up it so clearly wants to ape. It is, after all, Hunter's show. He put it bluntly in a 2006 interview: "I feel like this is my barbershop quartet. Everyone has their part. We don't have another songwriter in the band and I'll never have another songwriter in my band."
The band's matte durability, its strong suit, loses a bit of its independence in Hunter's lyrics. He turns a sharp phrase-- "I got my shiny coin and I'm getting to the vanishing point"-- but he gives so much of his lyrical content up to naked tips of the hat to other songwriters that his songs can veer from effective nostalgia into the plainly derivative. He waters down the Lizard King's imagism and fatal imperatives ("Don't try to run and hide/ There is no other side") parrots Stax croons ("Baby doll, you can have it all / A diamond ring or a shiny car") and swoons with forgettable mystic love ("Wrapped in white/ First I saw your eyes/ Then I saw your smile"). It's ironic that Hunter's voice gains so much from its "classic" richness, its hearkening back to rock giants of the past, while his lyrics often lose their way retracing the same history.
And history is what is at stake here. Catfish Haven and Devastator are so counter "post-modern," counter "indie," deliberately and confidently well-worn, that when the sketches of American rock history lose their way, the band and its songs sounds like supporting players to gorgeous voice and a shared passion for what was.
