Elizabeth & The Catapult - Taller Children
By Nick Manteris · 0 Comments · Leave a Comment
Elizabeth & The Catapult is a New York band comprised of Elizabeth Ziman, Danny Molad and Peter Lalish and they play a mixture of indie, folk rock, jazz and baroque pop. Taller Children is their debut album and it’s apparently been available on iTunes since Cinco de Mayo…although hard copies were not available until over a month later on the ninth of June. The seeds for the band were planted when Ziman heard Molad playing in a seedy college bar and decided almost instantly that they should play music together. Lalish (a cartoonist that now does all the artwork for the band) joined the duo in a musical capacity not long after and in 2006 they released a self-titled EP. They got their start playing residencies at Rockwood music hall in New York. For Taller Children, they allegedly recorded twenty-five songs to choose from, but somehow three of the songs from the EP carried over to this release.
The album begins with “Momma's Boy” (one of several songs recorded in Molad’s bedroom) on which Ziman explains, “If you want a girl to be your mother, go find another, go find another one.” Next up is the title track – sounding quite a lot like something from The Bird and the Bee – followed by “Rainiest Day of Summer,” a mournful tune (also recorded in Danny’s bedroom) with just a hint of hope. The next noteworthy track – and probably the best on the album – is “Hit The Wall.” Then the band answers the eternal “Beatles or Elvis?” question on the sweet little love song, “Right Next To You,” with the line, “I read the news today, oh boy.” The final great song is a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows,” which is actually better than the original.
- Score
- 88%
Elizabeth & the Catapult is one of my favorite new discoveries of 2009 (Their album is a perfect example of my musical bias: a sometimes playful, sometimes sultry, usually cute female vocalist combined with a heavy dose of melancholy and a healthy portion of harmony and groove.) and it’s really quite surprising that before getting a label and a manager the band was completely independent for four years.
