Take two brothers from the U.K. with some serious swagger and a multi-instrumentalist femme fatale from Los Angeles, and you already have an interesting recipe. Add soaring melodies, catchy lyrics, and explosive live performances, and you have a band with serious potential. That’s pretty much the case with Nightmare and The Cat. Besides, Sam and Django Stewart are the sons of Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart and Bananarama’s Siobhan Fahey, so not only they have lived and breathed music since a very young age, but they also are pretty well connected in the business. They’ve recently wrapped up some talked about shows at SXSW, a residency at 3 Clubs, and a performance at Pamela Des Barres’ (author of “I‘m With The Band“) garden party in L.A. They’re in NYC at the moment, and I was lucky enough to hear about them just in time to catch their performance at Glasslands in Brooklyn.
From the moment Nightmare and The Cat hit the stage, saying “feel free to come closer”, the crowd was hanging on their every move. I immediately recognized the sex-charged dance moves of Django, and remembered the performances from his previous gigs with Django James and The Midnight Squires. But this was much different, more mature, more refined. Their music is a mixture of the upbeat sounds of Cold War Kids, the deep melodic vocals of Jeff Buckley, and the wailing guitars and attitude of The Pixies. After the encore(and we all know that an encore in Brooklyn is as hard to come by as the G train at night), kids were dancing onstage and it was one big party.
Nightmare and The Cat’s self-titled debut EP came out on July 12. Composed of 5 songs produced by Dan Burns (Surfer Blood, Andrew WK) and Glen Ballard (Alanis Morrisette, Dave Matthews Band), it’s the perfect mixture of youthful, danceable tracks, and spine-tingling harmonies that don’t miss a beat. There are 5 bonus live performance videos and some amazing album art from L.A.’s Gary Baseman as well, so pick it up! – Jenna Putnam
