I’ve got to admit, it took one look at the cover of this track to get me on side. Cats soaring through outer space? Sign me up! And it’s called “Modern Indie Spacecats”? From a Naarm/Melbourne band called The Great Emu War Casualties? My expectations were high, but this track delivers. It’s bold and boisterous, with a bass line that just won’t quit. Sign me up for that feline space mission!
Frontman Joe Jackson explained the song’s inspiration, noting “The world is drying up and everyone is working all the time and nobody actually owns anything anymore, and we, the good little boys and girls, receive this rebrand from ownership to leasing as some sort of utopian global destination.” He bemoaned that even the dream of space travel has been seized by the ultra-rich, noting that “We should have seen this coming from the very first day it was possible to ‘buy a star’ and put your own stupid name on it. So where is our place in all of this? Maybe we are all the Modern Indie Spacecats.”
The Great Emu War Casualties will play a free hometown show at the Post Office Hotel with Useless Spaceman this Saturday, July 23.
Image used with permission from Kick Push PR; credit: Catherine Black