Fantastic Cat drop new single ‘Donnie Takes The Bus’
The band drop the first teaser from their upcoming album ‘Cat Out of Hell’.
Did you hear the news? Whistling is back in. Not since Otis Redding back in ‘67 has whistling sounded quite this cool. Not only is Donnie Takes The Bus an absolutely electric slice of Americana rock, but it may have also reintroduced the whistle back to rock and roll after a near 60-year exile.
As far as being the opening single from your upcoming record, that’s not bad going. Fantastic Cat themselves are a throwback to bands gone by, like CSNY and The Travelling Wilburys, by serving essentially as a folk-rock supergroup.
What separates Fantastic Cat from those supergroups of yesteryear, though, is that not only do they write and sing all of their songs together, but they also trade off instruments from song to song.
Rolling Stone even described them as “the Harlem Globetrotters of Americana”. High praise indeed. Here’s the thing, though. Fantastic Cat’s latest single, Donnie Takes The Bus, is worthy of all the praise it can get. As far as Americana music goes, it is a joyful, jiving and anthemic tour de force.
The group, consisting of four renowned solo singer-songwriters in their own right, Brian Dunne, Don DiLego, Anthony D’amato and Mike Montali, are not afraid to have fun. It doesn’t take long to work that out. Their upcoming album is called Cat Out Of Hell, for starters.
If you haven’t worked out by the time Donnie Takes The Bus erupts from its pulsating intro into a cacophony of whistles and gang vocals that these guys love playing music together, then you simply haven’t been paying attention. It really is a joy to hear them trade off vocals throughout verses. Most supergroups tend to sound like a collection of songwriters who take turns just backing each other up. Fantastic Cat sound like so much more. They are a band in the truest sense of the word.
Perhaps what I love most about Donnie Takes The Bus is the huge Rolling Stones swagger that inhabits this song. It has some of the Jagger Swagger of songs like Brown Sugar and Satisfaction, but it is dripping in the American cosmic country spirit that permeates deep within songs like Sweet Virginia and Dead Flowers. It has buckets of confidence and rock and roll spirit. Whilst I could certainly imagine Mick Jagger singing Donnie Takes The Bus, I couldn’t imagine him doing it any better than Fantastic Cat do. Fantastic Cat sound like they are having a party.
If Donnie Takes The Bus is anything to go by, then they aren’t planning on stopping that party any time soon.
Cat Out of Hell is out on April 10th via Missing Piece Records.
