Mother Nature Calls

Another great album from the brilliant Cast! Their 2nd album "Mother Nature Calls" from 1997 once again found this great band from Liverpool, doing what they do best, creating great music. All 11 tracks are wonders of modern Brit-pop perfection. But my favorite tracks are "Mirror Me" what a brilliant song, "Dance of the Stars" just so beautiful, "Free Me" the great opening track, a real rocking tune. "Never Gonna Tell You What To Do (Revolution)", wow what a great song, brilliant. "On the Run", reminded me a lot of the Dave Clark Five (I noticed people have been apt to compare them strongly to the Beatles, but they forget that the early Beatles sounded very much like the rest of the great Liverpool bands too) sans the slight feedback and fuzzy lead guitar. "Live the Dream", another wonderful tune, John has a great voice. "I'm So Lonely", here's one that could have been done by Jerry Marsden or Herman's Hermits, just great. "The Mad Hatter",..."time, time, time, time, time,...give me some.." another great tune. This band is just amazing, John Powers is without doubt one of the best singer-songwriters ever, really! Do yourself a favor and find out what it means when "Mother Nature Calls". (BTW: John Leckie, another great production job.)Love and Peace,Carlos Romero

Every once in a great while, I have found myself popping this one into the CD player, because I consider myself a Cast fan, and yet, I marvel in somewhat of a disbelief at how shockingly weak and tossed off this record is. I actually don't think the debut "All Change" was a masterpiece in its own right, but still, if the term 'sophomore slump' was ever applicable, it's right here. On "Mother Nature Calls", John Power seems snake bit, tossing off one mind-blowingly bland and insipid Brit-pop tune after another. I'm more than a little amazed that producer John Leckie could have possibly thought that this was a strong batch of songs. People often complained that Noel Gallagher had nothing to say lyrically, and if that was the case, I don't think they'd even know where to begin with Power's lyrics here which are platitudinous and generic beyond all belief, taking the term 'scraping the bottom of the barrel' to new heights. He goes berserk with repetition on numerous songs, seemingly thinking it provides some kind of mantra-like quality, but with his self-absorbed nasal delivery partly to blame, he fails miserably at achieving a hypnotic quality and instead winds up being simply horrendously repetitive (the chorus on "The Mad Hatter" is probably the most brain-frying demonstration of this).On the more positive side, I'll admit that "Mirror Me" is quite good. The lyrics still leave a lot to be desired, but the grungey riff over a one-note bass line works well, and the Mellotron on the bridge sections is ear-catching and effective. "Never Gonna Tell You What To Do" has a notable dreaminess to it, although again, shoddy lead vocals from Power and ludicrously simplistic lyrics cut it right down. I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention the orchestrated ballad "I'm So Lonely", a fine piece of songwriting with a memorable looping guitar riff, although the orchestration does get to be too much, giving the tune a regrettably sappy flavor.Still, even the relative high points can't be given an unqualified recommendation, and is further indicative of how weak "Mother Nature Calls" really is. Cast did bounce back with the next album, 1999's "Magic Hour", which contains some certifiably great songs, and then they bounced back even stronger when they came back after a 10+ year hiatus for 2012's "Trouble Times" which, somewhat incredibly, gets my vote for Cast's best album.

Britpop may have been fine when it came to fast, uptempo cheerful songs, which reflected Britain's modo at the time as well as being great to singalong to. The trouble was, few of it's luminaries were all that smart, and were left to look lame when they tried to do something of a suposedly higher emotional plane. Cast are lumbered alongside Ocean Colour Scene, Menswear and several others too bland to remember in falling flat at their attempts at sophistocation.Stuff like Live the Dream, On the Run and Never Gonna Tell You What To Do show that John Power has very little at his heart. Rollicking tunes like Guiding Star, an infectious song owing much to his religious beliefs, and the old-fashioned (but what have Cast done which isn't?) lead single Free Me show some spark, and suggested that for second-hand price (it is a staple in second hand shops in England) it may be worth it.Sadly not. The album's fourth single was I'm So Lonely, which was adequate but not stunning, even compared to Walkaway which veered a little close to bland for my liking. Otherwise it was a mess of outdated ideas and had the image of a band trying too hard to be mature.And as a final point, David Groves descirbes their debut as 'exciting', which pours scorn on Scott Shea's lousy argument that he is wasting his time writing a review as he doesn't like the band. If no-one reviewed bands they don't like these reviews would just be blind hero-worship similar to his own review, and not useful in providing recommedations at all. But it sums this album up. The only people who said nice things about it were already Cast fans, willing to put up with any old rubbish.

This is one of my favourite albums so I'm going to be biased. The interplay of voice and instruments are very good on the original. The production was very well managed at the time. The vinyl just seem to give them extra space to inhabit. The sound is richer and has more definition.When Free Me starts it's is not shy, but comes in a full speed you know you are going to get a belter of a song. I'm So Lonely is a very mellow but powerful song, it feels very heart felt. A sad song but beautiful, it sours up on strong emotions. Mirror Me, John's voice is full of life. Guiding Star is a very uplifting song and my favourite on the album. Although Johns voice is of course excellent under it all is very strong guitar playing and there is a feeling that John knew he was writing for and they would be able to do justice to the music.

Another solid album from Cast featuring 4 successful singles namely the highly impressive 'Guiding Star' and the lovely string-laden 'I'm So Lonely' (as well as the crisp opener 'Free Me' and the mid-pace 'Live The Dream'). 'Soul Tied' is a solid 5 minute track with some superb guitar riffs whilst 'The Mad Hatter' throws some interesting Spanish influences into the mix; the final 2 tracks find John Power finding his subtle side again with 'Never Gonna Tell You...' and 'Dance of the Stars' bringing a touch of class to proceedings. Well worth buying this 1997 LP at a competitively low price.

But it's Cast so still gets 4 stars from me. If your not a fan of the band then this might be more like 3 stars for you. Don't get me wrong there's a couple of nice songs like Live the Dream and I'm So Lonely and the standout track Guiding Star which is more like what you would expect from the band, but you would suspect that when they made this they were in an expertimental phase and maybe they should have stuck to the tried and tested formula. Some of the tracks are a bit slow and don't really go anywhere with the experimental sounds prominent but fortunately the good equals the bad and makes it worth a listen. If you have just discovered Cast and don't want to buy all the albums I would strongly advise you to buy The Deluxe Edition of All Change and Magic Hour first and maybe download the mentioned songs from this.

Love the sounds this band produces and great for a bit of nostalgia! CD works completely fine with no issues at all. Cheers!

Grat Cd, very good I enjoy this