by Josh Stern
Not knowing much about Catch 22, except that they were a punk/ska band on Victory Records, before getting the cd made the surprise and excitement much greater. Being one of the many out of New Jersey, Catch 22 clearly defines what they want to be as a band in their latest release, Alone In A Crowd. "Music isn't playing by the rules of the game" is a line of the song "Point The Blame" and with a release like this one, that statement couldn't be more true. Catch 22 has very catchy ska riffs with nice, catchy horn melodies and fast vocals. There is some punk guitar in most of the chorus' of the songs but the verses are fast and fun with the squeeky ska guitar and fast drumming. My favorite song on the record is track 3, "Sounds Good, But I Don’t Know". In a couple songs they have slow intros that last a few seconds and then turn into fast ska and it sounds perfect. "Bloomfield Ave." is a rad song. It starts out with an intro with a violin and soft vocals and then the drums come in with a slower beat. After almost a minute of this the horns come in and the sounds of Catch 22 take over once again. And even Catch 22 can write a song about a girl. "San Francisco Payphone" has a nice melody that doesn't have the fast and obnoxious singing like some of the other C22 songs and contains lyrics like "I always laugh when you laugh, cry when you cry, dance when you dance." The music really grabbed a hold of me and now I see why these guys had such a big buzz going around about them.
