San Diego-born songwriter Eric Schroeder is exactly where he should be, but that wasn’t always the case. The last few years have found him moving between sounds, running through a series of sonic echoes in an effort to find something that he could latch on to, something that felt right in his mind. His last record, 2024’s Turned on the Stereo, was bristling with nervous energy, angst, and heartache — the volatile oscillations of someone who found little comfort in stillness and who longed to watch the horizon dance around him as the sun shifted through the day.
His new album, Cat’s Game, is something else entirely, a cathartic release of bottled emotions and intimate clarity. It’s more compact, less ostentatious in its delivery, an unpretentious exercise in harnessing the sinewy contractions of a live performance. Its creation was preceded by a bout of creative dissonance, a period when Schroeder was having trouble crafting his thoughts into something that felt honest to their innate impulses. Joined by Matt Scheussler on bass, Jake Richter on drums, and Aidan Finn on keys, he eventually found inspiration by forcing himself to write a song a day on piano, using this period of rhythmic calisthenics as way to loosen his imagination.
Working with producer Rob Schnapf at Mant Studios, Schroeder has captured the rugged geography of his inspirations in exact detail. He’s developed a sort of dexterous austerity, a sound that stays true to his desire for stripped-back production while meticulously layering the remaining pieces into a shifting vision of distorted riffs and careful songcraft. Just listen to his latest single, “High Low”, for proof of his ability to transmute melodic gravity into a spacious, freewheeling homage to artists like Big Star, The Replacements, and Matthew Sweet. Jangling punk spirits whirl around in this atmosphere of propulsive rock adaptation, offering a compelling insight into various sonic deconstructions and their subsequent tonal revisions.
Schroeder sets the mood: “‘High and Low’ – tapering off of a pill, strapped to the back of a Honda Civic, waking up after a ten hour sleep, shooting pool in the dark, making love while shot full of novocaine, sewn into a trampoline, fireflies during the day.”
Watch the Alex Shelly-directed video below.
Cat’s Game is due out April 11 on Enabler No. 6 Records. You can follow Schroeder on Instagram.
