Happy Days (CD) by Catherine Wheel

The musical and lyrical aggression of Catherine Wheel's HAPPY DAYS sounds like Liverpool's early- to mid-'80s neo-psychedelia thrown into a grunge context. Vocalist Rob Dickinson has the same breathy freak-out capacity as the Teardrop Explodes' Julian Cope or Echo & The Bunnymen's Ian McCulloch, but his and Brian Futter's careening chunks of guitar drive the band to a harder end.

It's this duality that propels HAPPY DAYS, Catherine Wheel's third album: a sense of angsty, post-Cobain scream therapy sidling up to dizzying guitars and la-la-la choruses. This is best displayed on "Judy Staring At The Sun," where Dickinson and Belly's Tanya Donelly share dreamy pop vocals over shimmering guitar effects. "Fizzy Love" is a harmonica-flavored blues affair, and is directly followed by "Kill My Soul," where Dickinson admits, "call me romantic/But I'm frantically f**ked."

An edgy pop sampling of damage control and self-destruction, HAPPY DAYS beams doomed lyrics over deranged falsettos and screeching guitar signatures, reaffirming Catherine Wheel's stature as a gleaming fixture on pop's underbelly.