OTR: Catherine Wheel - Ferment

Originally labeled "shoegaze," the Catherine Wheel was one of the finest alternative rock groups of the 1990s. I first heard of them in the mid-90s when I heard their cover of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" played on Ottawa, Ontario rock station 106.9 "The Bear." As a teenager, I listened to that station near constantly and it was one of the first places I heard some of my favourite bands. These days they play too much Nickelback.

So, back to Ferment, which is the band's 1992 debut LP; though the last disc by them which I acquired. Of the twelve songs on the album, four of them - "Shallow," "I Want To Touch You," "She's My Friend" and "Salt" - were released as singles on an independent label before the release of the album. "Black Metallic" and "Balloon" were released as singles afterwards.

To be blunt: if you hate atmosphere, you will hate this album. I, on the other hand, love atmosphere and I place Ferment up there with anything released by Slowdive or Lush. However, while this album is certainly a monolith if taken whole, the songs don't need to bookend each other to stand strong. The songwriting is not only damn near perfection but so is the sequencing.

"Black Metallic" does deserve special mention though. It is a droning seven minute love song for...a car. But what a car it must have been to inspire such passionate singing and such perfectly timed dynamic changes in the wall of effects pedals the guitars are running through. The music video, while appropriately surreal commits the travesty of cutting the song down to four minutes.

Truncated, but still epic.

I first heard "Black Metallic" when Catherine Wheel's radio promo single for "Sparks Are Gonna Fly" arrived at WAIH. The station's copy of Ferment, if it ever had one, was missing in action. So, for the longest time, "Black Metallic" was all I'd ever heard off the LP. You can bet I played the fuck out of it on my radio show, however.

Had I a copy of the disc at the time, I'm sure my other personal favourite - "Flower To Hide" - would have received similar treatment.