Album review: Tigercub – Nets To Catch The Wind

You can spot Jamie Hall from a mile off. Standing at seven feet tall, the Tigercub mainman is what Roald Dahl imagined when he wrote The BFG: a kind-hearted, gentle giant from Sunderland, whether he’s fronting the Brighton-based trio, masterminding the mixing desk at Brighton Electric Studios (bassist Jimi Wheelwright is the general manager) or blocking the crowd view at London’s BST Hyde Park, where Tigercub supported Pearl Jam in 2022.

In more ways than his height, Jamie caught the eye of Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard. He signed them to his own label, Loosegroove, for 2023’s third record The Perfume Of Decay. They extended their partnership to this week’s follow-up, Nets To Catch The Wind. A decade on from their debut, the trio have now nailed down their superpower: savage, uncompromising stoner-rock riffs. It’s as if you pumped Royal Blood full of steroids, added the falsetto fusion of Matt Bellamy with Josh Homme, and cranked it all up to 11.

That recipe has proven fruitful, because Tigercub played their biggest-ever headline show last month, celebrating Nets To Catch The Wind at London’s KOKO. That set proved why lead single Fall In Fall Out goes toe-to-toe with golden oldies like Sleepwalker and Beauty, its sludgy post-chorus moving with the stomp of two steel toe cap boots. There’s an urgency to Stuck In The Melancholy that neatly captures the panicked feeling of being trapped in the in-between, numbed by the middle of the night. ‘If life is but a dream / I don’t wanna feel a thing.’

What’s impressive about this Tigercub album is that every showpiece riff – and there are many – doesn’t seek unnecessary attention. Instead of searching for Seven Nation Army 2.0, the persistent riff in My Paper Heart and the (relatively) pop-structured Magic Sleep serve the song, not the ego of Jamie the guitarist. The strum of the acoustic is a welcome surprise in the former and Cut The Eyes Out Of The Photographs, where Clutch’s Neil Fallon shows up at the end to ‘Speak in silver monotones’, reverting back to the throughline of the record by going full-out Inception, intoning, ‘A dream within a dream.’

By this point, the identity of Tigercub seems self-assured, and they’ve leant into their strengths on Nets To Catch The Wind. It’s nothing totally new, but they’ve subtly upskilled what they know they do best. If they’re in this for the long game, such marginal gains will stand them in good stead.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Royal Blood, HIMALAYAS, Queens Of The Stone Age

Nets To Catch The Wind is released on April 10 via Loosegroove.