​Loose Cattle (from the album Someone’s Monster

​Loose Cattle (from the album Someone’s Monster

​Loose Cattle (from the album Someone’s Monster available on Single Lock Records/Low Heat Records) (by Brian Rock)
Loose Cattle pay tribute to society’s misfits, outcasts, and lonely losers on their third album, Someone’s Monster. The New Orleans-based band headed to the fabled Muscle Shoals region of Alabama to get that swampy sound these tales require. Combining Folk vocals, Bluegrass fiddle, and Rock drums, the band creates a signature sound to convey their stories. Co-bandleaders Michael Cerveris and Kimberly Kaye join in harmony, and trade vocals, to bring an emotional punch to their Southern tragedies. 
“Cheneyville” typifies the morose mood of the album. The song is about a teenage girl’s rapid descent into despair. She leaves the happy home of her youth to pursue love. Her lover soon turns violent and leaves her with child. Seeking a way out, she learns that her state has strict anti-abortion laws. As dire as the story is, the lilting fiddle captures glimpses of the warmth of her parents’ love and the new love she hoped to find on her own. As her story unfolds, the haunting chorus warns that ‘she’s never going back to Cheneyville’. Echoing the album’s title, the song explores how an angel can become a ‘monster’ in someone else’s eyes. With no malice of intent, a person overwhelmed by a series of poor decisions or circumstances beyond her control; can be forced to make a decision that may be viewed as monstrous to others. The deceptively soothing melody of the song reminds us not to pass judgement until we’ve walked a mile in someone else’s’ shoes.
‘Before We Begin” offers a melodious Folk litany of the marginalized who have died from overdose, suicide, or abuse, and asks us to pause a moment in remembrance. “Tender Mercy” offers advice for those who seek to drown their sorrows with ‘chemical anger filling your veins’. “Big Night Out” follows a woman whose goal is to ‘get drunk tonight... and punch somebody’s lights out’. Despite her belligerent demeanor, she still manages to attract the interest of a ‘flannel gentleman’. In spite of herself, she manages to fall in love – until the cycle begins again. The deceptively lively rhythms of “Further On’ belie the hopelessness of jaded lovers who ‘just get lonely, trying not to hear the roaring tide of voices raised in anger’. “God’s Teeth” is a brooding meditation on group judgement. “Here’s That Attention You Asked For” is a haunting tale of revenge on grabby handed philanderers. Lucinda Williams joins the band on the touching, bittersweet “Joanne”. But even here, in a song of mutual love, Death intrudes to destroy the happily ever after. “The Shoals” is a gritty, Blues-tinged Folk/Rock ode to a woman who just wants to speak her mind, but when she does, she hears ‘fading footsteps leaving me behind’. In each of these songs Cerveris and Kaye use sparse lyrics to imply more than they describe. There is no “Ira Hayes” or “Fancy” in this lot. There are no heroes of the damned. Instead, they are anonymous characters lurking on the edge of society. The purpose for this is so that we may better see ourselves in the less fortunate; for there but for the grace of God go we. But, offering a silver lining of hope even for the despondent, the band offers a Southern Rock anthem of hope on “Not Over Yet”. Calling out to all ‘weirdos, witches, lonely hearts, cowboys and queers’ the band urges us to keep pushing forward because ‘it’s not over yet’. (by Brian Rock)
Listen and buy the music of Loose Cattle from AMAZON
Visit the Loose Cattle website for more information