Full bio.
Catherine Wheel were original in their interpretation of the "shoegazer" ethos, perhaps also because their sound drew on new wave, dark-punk, and American alternative rock.

Thanks to Rob Dickinson’s masculine vocals and Brian Futter’s effervescent guitar work, the standout tracks of Ferment (Fontana, 1992) sound infinitely more sophisticated than much of the British psychedelia of the time. While She's My Friend (Wilde Club, 1990), their debut single, only boasts a simple melody, Black Metallic is a long and tormented Neil Young-style harangue with psychedelic effects reminiscent of Echo And The Bunnymen. The electrifying atmosphere of Texture leads nowhere in particular, but the effect of their dense, feverish harmonies is hallucinatory. Tracks like I Want To Touch You (and to a lesser extent Tumbledown) rely almost entirely on Futter’s spectacular guitar work, which, in the spirit of Hendrix and Clapton, constructs hammering mandalas around what are actually just power-pop riffs, or (Indigo Is Blue, Bill And Ben) builds colossal walls of distortion around the partner’s innocuous choruses.
Catherine Wheel earned a prominent place among post-psychedelic "noise" bands thanks to their instrumental tornadoes.

Chrome (Fontana, 1993) uses precisely that noise to launch a more rock-oriented and less dream-pop phase (also catchier and less cacophonous). The martial Kill Rhythm and the syncopated Chrome nod to melodic hard rock. Over a bunker of grunge and doom sonics rises the heroic chorus of I Confess. The search for a new balance between the old and the new styles yielded less banal results in Broken Head, reminiscent of the Soft Boys, in Crank, which shows their connection to the Pixies, and in Pain, the most mature song, a ballad alternating stunning riffs with subdued lament, influenced by Neil Young and the Replacements.
Experimentation reaches the edge of liquid psychedelic jam in the long Fripp. Strange Fruit and Show Me Mary are instead the obligatory catchy choruses. None of the tracks are particularly memorable, but the effort is commendable.

Catherine Wheel definitively leave shoegazing behind with the noisy, brash sound of Happy Days (Fontana, 1995). The album even begins at a grindcore gallop with God Inside My Head, and continues with Southern boogie on Little Muscle and deafening distortion on Hole. Even the most innocuous choruses, like those of Shocking and Judy Staring At The Sun, are tinged with spasmodic tension. This theatrical and pretentious style inevitably leads into power-ballad territory (Eat My Dust and Heal). Attempts to sound menacing are a bit pathetic, but when Dickinson screams the chorus of Waydown over an instrumental barrage worthy of the Smashing Pumpkins, the band earns its own dignity. Unlike much of the British shoegazer scene, Catherine Wheel never lack ideas—though they still lacked consistently strong songs.

Adam And Eve (Mercury, 1997) represents a starting point more than a destination. The sound employs much more ambitious arrangements, which could mark a point of arrival for any musician growing more savvy over time. But these arrangements serve a melodic, intimate, and romantic intent that diverges sharply from the past. Production becomes the tool the band needs to express this new sensibility. The album flows as a concept, moving from one track to another without ever losing the narrative thread (a long meditation on nostalgia).
The caresses of Rob Dickinson and Brian Futter’s guitars paint the delicate fairy tale of Future Boy, and the ballad Phantom Of The American Mother, somewhat REM-like in its alternation of acoustic and electric, whisper and scream. The keyboards (first Hammond organ, then synthetic orchestra) drive the sonic orgy of Here Comes The Fat Controller (their repeated homage to Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd, but also to Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone) and Goodbye, its natural, even more melodramatic and nostalgic continuation.
The band revives shoegazer stereotypes in the single Delicious, and recaptures the rock ’n’ roll drive of previous albums, with characteristic solid rhythms and interlocking guitars around boogie chords, in Broken Nose and Satellite. For emotional intensity, it is one of their essential albums.

Like Cats And Dogs (Mercury, 1996) had simply been a miscellaneous collection, a minor and somewhat pretentious episode, but it began to conceive songs as nebulous sound clouds, set in motion by minimal touches of the guitars (bordering on new age in the case of Saccharine).

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