Better kate than never
The Daily Telegraph, May 28 2003

This will give Something For Kate fans a reason to smile. The new album is in the can and the first sample - a sparkling string-embellished rocker entitled Deja Vu - will grace your ears shortly. It's due to hit radio waves on June 9, followed by record shelves on July 7. As unaccustomed as we are to making grand statements here, let us say it's the best song Something For Kate have recorded. The trio are overseas now, about to start their European tour with Silverchair. But we spoke to the band just before they left and got a sneak preview of the entirely fab, as-yet-untitled, 13-track follow-up to Echolalia. The new record, we were told, was recorded much like the last with the bulk of it captured at Mangrove Studios over 53 days straight, followed by another 10 days at two studios in Los Angeles. Trina Shoemaker was in the producer's chair again. This time, however, the band had a few friends - old and new - lending a hand and voice. Guest vocalists include Grant Lee Phillips, Lisa Germano and Caitlin Cary.

"We're just fans of the three of them," says SFK's Paul Dempsey. "There were a couple of songs where I thought, 'I don't want just a second vocal, I want a second character. I want this song to have two distinctive voices'."

SFK spent an entire year creating songs for the new album. The agenda, as always, was simply to produce something new. And that took time.

"Sometimes we have to wait or Paul will have to wait for something to present itself to him," says bassist Stephanie Ashworth.

"I guess we're just not the sort of band that are going to write for the sake of ... entertainment. It's not why we're doing it."

That's all fine and good - every band should suffer to create high art - but if they did everything virtually the same as Echolalia, then why does the new stuff sound so new, so different, so much bigger than before?

"We pretty much stop working on anything that sounds like us," says Paul. "You know when you're boring yourself. You know when you're playing something that isn't really fresh, so you stop.

"I think the reason it sounds bigger is that we're all playing together," says Paul. "In the past every instrument was always doing a completely different thing."

SFK's new album is due out on August 18.