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Cathode Bob were formed in 1996 in New Jersey and debuted with
the six-song cassette Amused (1997).
The album Envy the Numb (1998) is a collection of mostly
reflective ballads
Medicine Man, User, Pretty) with occasional bursts of
garage-rock (Medicine Man, Temporary) and moments of utter
originality (Seeker).
Threadbare (2000) increased the experimental elements
(Zero Times Nothing, On My Way) and the intensity of the rave-ups
(Star Tripping, Half Free), but, again, excelled at
haunted litanies over dreamy textures like
Girl Nervous, Debt, Wanting Blonde.
Singer and guitarist Justin Mikulka had also recorded as Leghound the album
Beggars And Choosers (One Mad Son, 1996) and started his solo
career with the lo-fi acoustic folk of Consumer (One Mad Son, 1998) and
Sequels and Opposites (One Mad Son, 1999).
Mikulka's Move Toward The Exit (One Mad Son, 2001) marks a change of
peace for the subdued singer songwriter.
While it opens with the crazed, angular blues of Whores and Love
that recalls Captain Beefheart,
and closes with a ghostly voodoo spiritual like Bad Luck Lonely,
the core of the album is in a depressed, abulic, mood that releases
what can hardly be called ballads.
The best are delivered in a brooding and shivering baritone reminiscent of a
sleepy Bruce Springsteen (Slow Learner) and sometimes sound
altogether lugubrious (Follower, Shadows And The Slide).
Mikulka occasionally mixes the
tender tones of Nirvana and the metaphysical pace of
Neil Young (Kept, Fast Enough)
and occasionally imitates the rollicking and tuneful art of Gordon Lightfoot
(Repeating Lives and Echoes), but mostly it is his own,
undefinable voice.
Cathode Bob's mini-album Undone (One Mad Son, 2003) refines the band's
style with tighter and catchier songs. The poppy garage-rock of Caught You Smiling is not particularly original, but the
massive distortion and epic melody of Suburbicide
or
the breezy chorus and jangling guitars Until You Get There
are signs of a blossoming talent.
Justin Mikulka added more instruments to the scores of
Sequels and Opposites (One Mad Son, 1999).
Jones distorts the structure of the blues by adding a second off-key
voice, by leaving the sound of rain in the background and by downplaying the guitar.
High Horse Rider is a more orthodox blues, although shouted in a
distorting device.
Then, suddenly, Mikulka intones the Warren Zevon epos in Die Happy,
although at a frantic, neurotic pace.
That turns into a Bob Dylan rant in More Or Less, the lyrics repeated
by another voice in spoken mode, and in You and I.
Mrs Jones is a mad street chant, and Your X is a drunkard's
nightmare in a cold night, and Mutiny sounds like a choral invocation
at a tribal pow-wow.
Mikulka's experimental ambitions yield Antisong and
Learn to Love It, two glorious essays of folk music for mental asylums.
Mikulka released the anti-war concept album
False Positive (2010)
under the moniker False Positive.
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