Review: Cat Rapes Dog – Trojan Whores (1992)

I originally wrote this review for Darksonus.com, which no longer exists.

  1. Trojan Whores

  2. Everything’s Gone Green (New Order cover)

  3. 909 Whores

Sounds: 3 of 5

Vocals: 1.5 of 5

Composition: 2.5 of 5

Overall Rating: .467

Most people probably have not heard of this Swedish group. The name might have something to do with it. The fact that they’re not very good might also contribute. One source refers to them as “punkelectro”, while another refers to them as industrial. Cat Rapes Dog is, however, a truly industrial band. Their early jam sessions were conducted in a factory where member Joel Rydstrom was working. At night, they would spend hours banging on sheets of metal with iron poles hoping the boss would not catch them.

While the lyrics to Trojan Whores are nothing short of brilliant with lines like “Open the doors, open the doors, I have a horse full of whores” and “This war ain’t no game anymore, this is a horse and it’s full of whores”, Everything’s Gone Green is nothing short of awful. The distortion does very little to hide how off-key singer Joel Rydstrom is (in fact, in an interview he admits that he had the idea to hide his awful vocals using distortion while seeing Ogre at a Skinny Puppy show), while the female vocalist sounds like she has had one too many Valium. In fact, either one sounds like they could throw up on themselves at any time during the song. The accompanying music is typical of European electronic dance music of the era, neither brilliant nor awful, just “average” drum-machine-and-synthesizer background. The accompanying guitar work is noticeably out of time in places, but blends into the mix fairly well.

Although they are influenced by Skinny Puppy, Cabaret Voltaire, and Einsturzende Neubauten, they somehow manage to completely fail to take the music to the next level. Had they not included the butchering of New Order’s Everything’s Gone Green, this disc would have scored higher. You may find it amusing, but Cat Rapes Dog likely to only find a permenant home in a music collection based on its novelty value. Although not very mass-marketable, the name has a certain ring to it.

If you want more information on Cat Rapes Dog, their official website is: http://crd.se/CRD.SE/HEM.html