kate can wait is the moniker of Molly Kate Rodriguez from Puerto Rico, the latest member of the growing family at Grimalkin Records. After meeting Grimalkin’s Nancy Kells on Twitter, Rodriguez shared her music and the pair’s mutual appreciation led to a new kate can wait album, howl youth, and fellow Grimalkin Elizabeth Owens provided the artwork—reinforcing the spirit of community and collaboration that underpins the label.
Speaking of the album art, Owens’s work is a good introduction to the record’s themes. The image of a werewolf is fitting in a number of ways, not least because of the diversity of the songs. Some are uptempo folk pop, where even sad sentiments are presented with the aural equivalent of a wistful smile, while others are dark and haunting, moonlit transformations that stalk and stare. This dichotomy of woman and wolf extends beyond the sound too, and could be viewed as a metaphor for unleashing one’s true self, be it related to race, sexuality, gender or disability, and having to face up to intolerance and violence that such a truth might invoke in others.
One of the album’s more ominous songs, the title track opens with stark and shadowy acoustic guitar, a gothic folk song that ends with ghostly echoing moans, the howl of the title that settles like thick fog. ‘summer vibez’ comes sparkling out of the murk, a song that reminisces about nights at the beach and diving into a lake. The vibe is at once glowing and subdued, the rich shaded with a wistful romanticism for times and people now gone.
‘Déjame’ is a gentle and melancholy Spanish language track, acoustic guitar burbling like a summer stream behind yearning vocals, while ‘Puppy Love’ is bright and hopeful in comparison, hints of country in the strummed guitar and earnest lyrics. The assured strum of ‘stormbreakerz’ seems to arise from this mood, the momentum arising from confidence and self-assurance.
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Another song sung in Spanish, ‘Licantropia’, is all tumbling acoustic guitar and floaty vocal harmonies. As the title, which translates as lycanthropy, suggests, the werewolf theme is particularly strong here, the protagonist locking themselves in their room for the full moon, and struggling to find themselves in the morning’s sunlight.
“Quejas a la luna
Rebotan por las paredes
Esta noche siento el miedo
De no encontrarme cuando salga el sol
Me esfuerzo contra mi cuerpo
Mi último disfraz”
‘Lady Hydrangea’ takes elements of Latin folk and expressive vocals to create something richly emotive, while ‘vesti2’ is soft and subdued, Rodriguez’s vocals front and centre above pretty guitar and vocal harmonies. Then, as if to show off the breadth of their abilities one last time, ‘faros’ bursts forth with grit and verve, a hit-the-highway folk song driven by an invigoratingly infectious strum.
Finale, ‘chinese takeout’ ends with another slice of darkly melodic folk, full of spooky wordless harmonies that give the song’s acoustic skeleton depth and texture. Lyrically, it’s morbid and melancholy, but still somehow richly romantic, and forms a fitting end to an album that never quite settles into one shape, its core thread of honesty and love enduring as individual songs come and go.
“The first time I died
awakened by the sirens in my mind
the many tears I’ve cried
blossomed into flowers on your grave”
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You can get howl youth now from Grimalkin’s Records or the kate can wait Bandcamp page. Proceeds will go to True Self Foundation, who support LGBTQIA+ communities in Puerto Rico. There is also an EP version which compiles six of the album’s standout tracks on 7″ lathe cut, so if records are more your thing check that out too.
