CATL. “This Shakin’ House” 2014. CATL. Records. We got another chance to see the most excellent Toronto-based punk-blues, southern-fried Americana rockin’ rhythm and blues duo perform this past weekend at Romanus Records Fest in Indianapolis (we saw them play at the Fest last year and again earlier this year at Boone and Crockett here in Milwaukee). Either Chris Banta or Warner Swopes from Brother O’Brother/Romanus Records snapped this photo of the crowd during catl’s set: we are in the front left hand corner, looking awfully serious LOL.

This Shakin’ House is catl’s fourth release and I believe the first as a bonafide two-piece, with “catl” (aka Jamie Fleming) on guitar and vocals and Sarah Kirkpatrick on vocals and drums (plus some signature corny dad jokes of which she pulled out a couple in Indy). It’s a honky-tonk blues stomping album with some really excellent tracks: my favorites are the Bo-Diddley-esque “Gateway Blues,” the hypnotic Junior Kimbrough-styled “Shakin’ House Blues” that has some great blues harmonica and the floor-shaking “Save Myself.”  “Save Myself” is a great example of the comparison I’ve made between Jamie and Jon Spencer – lots of great “YEAH!” lyrical punctuations; I believe catl performed with Spencer recently while he was on tour with his HITMakers.