Thessaloniki gave birth to many great bands in the hard rock stage, including Wild Rose, Redrum, W.A.N.T.E.D. and many more with a bright future ahead. One more is Jailcat, who exists since 2005, but their first album gets a release in 2015 .They had a good reason to wait, since ‘’Men Or Mice’’ has been produced by the well-known Chris Tsangarides (Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy, Ozzy, Gary Moore etc). Although it took them 10 years to come up with an album, they have never let us forget them, since they have played with many famous bands like Faster Pussycat(US), Wig Wam (NOR) and Star Star (US/GR).They have also participated in many festivals in Greece and especially in Thessaloniki.
The album is quite different from what I was expecting. Their sound reminds me of the end of the 90s era and the beginning of the 00s. It makes me feel like I am in college and I would use definitely many of their songs as soundtracks for movies like “Αmerican Pie”,”10 Things Ι Hate About You” etc. To be more precise, when I listened to the whole album, it reminded me of bands like Οffspring, Blink 182 or Sum 41! By saying that, I do not mean that they trying to sound like them. Not at all! Just that the feeling you get from the songs and their whole style, makes you remember those years. Jailcat have the nerve and enthusiasm that a young band needs in order to succeed. If I had to place them in a category, I would surely call them a “new American hard rock’’ band. Bands like Jailcat tend to include ballads in their track list, which I personally find pointless. I know that writing ballads is for romantic and of course commercial reasons but it’s not really my cup of tea. Sure, the ladies are stacking up the front row on their every show and on their next one there’s going to be more of them…
Jailcat has the right amount of punk attitude, but they lack of inspiration. I was expecting more hit songs in their first album because I have seen them performing live and I know what they are capable of. The songs I liked the most from the new album are: “Addicted to lies’’ (which is their 1st video clip), “When Patience’s gone(which I am sure I have heard before) and “Mice’’. I really wish there were more like those…
