"My house was about 50 yards from the sea and its sound filled my room night and day. It was inevitable that I would write about growing up in such a beautiful place".
We recorded our first album Mute with Mike Hedges in France and went on to record a Black Session for Bernard Lenoir, play Les Inrockuptibles festival, tour France with Pulp, Edwyn Collins and The Divine Comedy, and play twice at La Route du Rock festival in St Malo. We also toured the UK with Dr. John, Ireland with Oasis and the US with The Innocence Mission. Mute was released to critical acclaim.
NME: 'two astonishing voices and a skipful of youthful charm - somehow encapsulate every idyllic summer and perfect romance you ever had. The end result is deliriously great songs and the single-handed reinvention of 'perfect pop' as a viable concept. Honest. 8/10'Melody Maker: 'They've dream-wished into life a record of incandescent beauty and gentle rage. "Mute", indeed, robs me of speech: it steals my breath.'
CMJ Magazine: 'Few records deserve the accolade, but this one does: Mute is truly a perfect pop album.'
Sun Zoom Spark: 'For each person that exists there is a different and unique idea of perfection. 'Mute' is an item of that nature; intrinsically beautiful, inherently intuitive. Sure, there is no such thing as a perfect album but this is as close to that ideal as I have heard in aeons.'
Catchers went on to sign a deal with Jac Holzman's (The Doors, Love) label Discovery and moved to New York to spend a year promoting the first album across the US. When we returned to the UK we began work on the second with Nick Drake's arranger Robert Kirby writing string and brass section parts for some of the songs. On its release Stooping to Fit once again received praise from the national and music press: The Times: 'It is a tribute to the band - and especially songwriter Dale Grundle - that their basic guitar/bass/drums/keyboards formula remains so fresh and involving. Stooping to Fit is a soft-spoken masterpiece. 9 out of 10' Music Week: 'Catchers return with an album that oozes confidence and boasts a number of cracking tunes. Always a superb songsmith, Dale Grundle's dreamy, evocative songs should win over many new fans.' Magic! Revue Pop Moderne: 'I am convinced a great songwriter is born.' Roddy Woomble, the lead singer of Idlewild: 'Personally, I think (Catchers have) influenced me an awful lot. Their lyrics are a huge inspiration and certainly influence my approach towards writing. It's the way their singer, Dale Grundle, would write about seemingly ordinary subjects but still manage to weave all these strange analogies into them.'Check out Dale's new group at http://www.myspace.com/thesleepingyears
(it's always best to contact us there)