//Album Review\\ The Undead Cat finds powerful belonging with latest album 'Home In a Foreign Land'

Home can be defined as many things, from safety, to community and favourite foods, and general happenings, what does one do though when that home becomes a place of isolation and unfamilarity, for The Undead Cat, its an experience they know well,hoewver instead of letting it consume their being they chose a different path, a cathartic one in the form of new album ‘Home In A Foreign Land’ that sweeps the listener up in seconds with a sense of nostalgia, aching passion and a powerful yearning to find where you truly belong even when you aren’t sure where to start.

‘Home In A foreign land’ begins boldly with a haunting mysticism in the form of the whispery,meloncholic vocals, and hynoptically cool toned instrumentals of ‘Kirigami’ which takes the original meaning of its title and transforms it into a heartbreaking metaphor of protective self isolation, providing not only a layer of melancholy but also a sense that this album is more than just music but catharsis, a theme that quickly becomes clear throughout the rest of the album.

Following on from this is ‘Sink’, which combines reflectively passionate lyricism with a dreamy, yearning musicality to create an aching atmosphere that’ll heal and break a heart in the same breath, and creates a stunning space to dissect a past that easily becomes part of you, no matter how much you try to fight it. This one takes the motion of water and turns it into a gorgeous metaphor for letting the past weigh you down, and it absolutely pays off from start to finish.

Contrasting the brightness of ‘Sink’ is ‘Eye of the Storm’, which follows with a powerful maturity and more raw dissection of shame that comes with a painful past, yet keeps to a similar path of discussing the past's impact, only adding to the brilliance of Sink, sisters in sorrow in a sense. With a building strength from the bridge to its final notes, this track truly grows into its own and feels like the voice of reason in the chaos and change in the wind.

Moving into the mid point of the album is ‘Tunnel Vision’, which is probably the most experimental of the tracks, and most hypnotic with its loops of train announcements, warning alarms, brightly meloncholic synth lines, this track is a stunning personification of losing yourself in the noise of your own mind, consuming and isolating in atmosphere and a key turning point for this personal and at times raw production, which lends itself well to the tracks that follow it.

Sorrowful and vulnerable from the soul in its lyricism, ‘Origami’ is a heartbreaking track that takes personal pain and truly aims to face up to it, detangling itself from the sting and healing it no matter how long it takes. This track brilliantly combines the themes of Kirigami and Origami, discussing both in tandem, as a metaphor of adaptation, but at what cost, losing part of yourself to try and fit in even when it hurts.

On a similar note, ‘Nostalgic Melancholy’, takes a similar shape of personal truth, but explores it on a deeper level, combining hauntingly aching musicality with a poetically yearning lyricism that at first feels painfully vulnerable to anyone who’s felt unsafe in their own heart, and by its bridge, blossoms into a passionate, stunning realization that it shouldn’t take losing yourself to find where you belong. Complete with soulful unapologetic vulnerability and rich passion, this song is the perfect comfort to piece yourself back together, whatever that may look like.

This stunning dissection of personal truth is brilliantly followed by the intimately beauty of ‘Rasa Sayang (interlude)’ which is a beautiful bridging of generations featuring not only the vocals of Lucas Paw (The Undead Cat) but that of also a close family member to create lovely rendition of traditional malay folk song ‘Rasa Sayang’ (A loving Feeling), that feels like home, and provides the perfect reminder that even when you’re lost, you’ll always find your way home.

Off the back of such a beautiful cover, is the dreamy melancholy of ‘I Am Home’ which stands out as a powerful culmination of the album’s central themes, of isolation and homesickness for an unfamiliar world, and combines a cool toned musical backdrop with heartbreaking yearning lyricism to create a listening experience that will bring tears to the listeners eyes from its first note. Each lyric becomes a scar on the map of loss, and it is chilling to the depth of the soul in a painfully beautiful way.

Closing off this brilliant album is ‘Blue Room’, which fills the air with a sense of stunning introspection from its first note, combining both a sense of acceptance and a sense of loss to create a finale that feels lighter than a feather yet still powerful in its its delivery and sentiment, with its cool toned, weaving ambience and unapologetically honest lyricism that combines the albums incredible journey in one stunning lyric:’it’s where i’m supposed to be, home in a foreign Land’.

If there was ever an album to bring the heart to both tears yet feel healed, this is it,taking on an incredibly painful experience of isolation and homesickness and turning it into a musical experience truly worthy of its flowers.

‘Home In A Foreign Land’ by The Undead Cat is out now. Click the artwork below to stream on spotify.