The good thing about short albums is that you get back to the start quicker. Saucy Monky’s third record Between The Bars contains just five songs. It opens with the brilliant punky pop of ‘Acrobat’, a smart and thoroughly catchy song that should be all over the radio like a rash. As a result, it’s a real blast when the album is on loop and you realise: here it comes again, all pumping drums, and pleading vocals, set amid a rich bed of guitars: “Maybe you’re the acrobat/Swinging back and forth like that/While I’m on the trampoline/Jumping up and down to be seen…”
Keeping it tight this time around may be a smart move. Saucy Monky’s last outing, the marvellous Turbulence, was a big, sprawling, diverse record that seemed to confuse listeners hampered by either a short attention span or a narrow frame of reference. No fear of that here: this is more defiantly indie, and essentially rockier. It hits the ground running and every track is a potential hit – in every sense of the word.
Cynthia Catania and Annmarie Cullen are both superb songwriters and fine singers. The bonus with Saucy Monky is that you get two out front for the price of one: there’s just the right hint of girl pop here, a yearning, romantic strand that runs through the music, as they share lead vocals and harmonies and create an irresistibly sexy aura without any of the trying-too-hardness that many women performers are browbeaten into by the business.
Between The Bars ends with a superb version of the old Delaney and Bonnie/Joe Cocker/Carpenters hit ‘Superstar’, another cracking track that’s made for radio. In between they further cement their reputation as sultry sirens with a penchant for hooks that snag you irretrievably on ‘All The Things You Know’ (watch for the all-out metal mid section), ‘No One’s Here Anymore’ and ‘Listening To Morrissey (And Julian Cope)’.
The latter may be the song that liberates them from any misinterpretation of where they stand. It is gorgeously languid, an introspective indie bedsit hit for girls that every fellow is going to want in on too. Make no mistake, there’s a lot going on here, between the bars…