The Must-Hear Song Of The Week
Ryan Hanratty by Douglass Dresher
“Me Vs. The Lack Of Context,” by Catch Me If You Can, mixed and mastered by John Baldassano, comes out today. This one-man alternative-acoustic punk-rock troubadour—born Ryan Hanratty—starts out with a Neil Young warble but—BOOM!—then the horns kick in like The Bar-Kays—Otis Redding’s back-up band back in the day--pushing and shoving the mix forward in a frenetic rock’n’roll brand of breakneck crazy. That’s when the vocals change into bratty early Green Day mode as, clearly, this kid has got a lot to get off his chest.
“The track captures millennial frustrations, questioning creativity’s value in society, the constant noise of news and content, and the lingering `what if I got a real job’ moments,” according to his electronic press kit. “It’s an honest reflection on feeling overwhelmed and lost in the modern world.” Maybe so, but with fury like this, it also works as a work-out, constantly churning, as the lyrics are spit out with venom.
Catch Me If You Can has been gigging for 14 years with a soft spot for Third Eye Blind, but his worldview is much larger. He was the Hero Film Editor for The Jersey Sound documentary, mixing’n’matching hours and hours of footage into a cohesive 90-minute whole.