The fate of Catfish and the Bottlemen has been clouded in mystery since the North Wales band appeared to implode at some point in 2020, with their considerable fanbase left crying into the void of conjecture, armed only with claims that their heroes are on hiatus. So it was with sheer relief that curious flyers recently started popping up with the group’s name on and the scrawled word ‘Showtime’, small clues to the release of their bop of a comeback single.
Van McCann and co’s returning record is no reinvention of the wheel, but then we wouldn’t want it to be. Since their inception the Llandudno natives have purely offered robust slabs of powerful indie rock with minimal bells and whistles (hell they’ve never even had a song title made up of more than one word), stealthily surging to the top of the alt-rock pantheon on that basis alone and we’re pleased to say it looks as if nothing’s changed, even with a severely depleted line-up.
The track is the urgent expression of a band limbering up for comeback, which for them is crowned by headlining the 2024 Reading and Leeds festival main stage, the frontman’s ever-youthful yap considering the swiftness of fame’s rise and fall: “Don’t you blink or miss, it’s your time/ Before you know it’s going gone and that’s life”, perky guitars storming ever onward as the singer gleefully declares “I love that shit!”. A contemplative, almost gospel, piano outro signals that something may have shifted slightly this time around, but we’re not reading too much into that, remaining pretty confident that indie-rock radio stations across the nation will have no qualms welcoming the boys back to the top of their playlists.
‘Showtime’ was produced by Dave Sardy (Oasis, Fall Out Boy, The Who) and marks the group’s first release from their forthcoming LP. As well as headlining Reading and Leeds they’ve also announced major shows at Cardiff Castle on 19th July and Edinburgh Summer Sessions on August 24th during the summer of 2024. Tickets for both dates go on pre-release sale to official mailing list members at 10am on Tuesday 27th February and general sale at 10am on Friday 1st March.
Have a watch and listen to the single on the Youtube link below:
Edge of Arcady 