Cask Mouse
Cambridge Sessions
2011
So no no don’t you worry
Someday I’ll settle down
But this fire in my belly
Is burning hot right now
Cask Mouse profess their wanderlust on “Astronaut,” the opening track of 2011’s Cambridge Sessions. It’s a feeling that will pop up again and again throughout the EP. This is a stomp-and-clap-along number filled with hope. It sucks me in. The drawl. The hook. The positivity. Cask Mouse are masters of emotional manipulation.
All of that optimism quickly turns into sentimentality. “Brick On Brick” is a slow, reflective number featuring some of the gorgeous vocal harmonies that have become one of Cask Mouse’s trademarks. Everyone in the band can sing with conviction. Bonnie Parks takes her turn on “Time To Breathe.” It’s a devastating number that revisits the theme of locational restlessness.
The places I’ll go
The things that I’ll see
Never really mattered that much to me
I’m leaving home
I won’t come back
I won’t come back
I won’t come back
That songs gets me every time. It’s brutal. I crash. “Smokin'” is the big hangover. This ode to hard living settles in with the slow burn of resignation before kicking up some dust. Cambridge Sessions closes with “Radio,” which pleads Cask Mouse’s case for displacement one last time.
Baby, turn off the radio
The sun is coming up
And I feel I have to go
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