Cass McCombs was born in Concord, California and at the age of 23 he set off to the East Coast and began networking and performing open mics in New York City and Baltimore. He spent most of his adult life travelling around the United States, moving from one city to the next, settling at one point in Baltimore, where he recorded his debut EP 'Not the Way', which was released in 2003 by a local indie label.

A, was released early the following year and was distributed in Europe and the U.K. by 4AD. McCombs and his band spent much of 2003 and 2004 touring, playing the All Tomorrow's Parties festival and supporting label-mates Blonde Redhead.

Early in 2005, the ‘Sacred Heart’ single revealed the more polished, although still dark, direction of his second album, PREfection, which arrived that spring. In 2005, he moved to Los Angeles to work on his third full-length, Dropping the Writ, released on Domino Records. McCombs then went on to release his fourth album earlier this year (2009) Catacombs, which was also released on Domino Records.

To coincide with Cass McCombs going on tour throughout the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe in December 2009, the new single 'Dream Come True Girl' is released.

This contains two version of the title track, the radio edit and album version as well as a third track entitled 'Minimum Wage'.

The Radio edit of 'Dream Come True Girl' starts of with a good sounding beat and some nice percussion. The problem I have is when the vocals start, they sound depressing and needy. This is a very slow song, certainly not one to perk you up.

The album version of this single is about 2 minutes longer than the radio edit, whereas the radio edit fades out at 3 minutes, the album version carries on. I actually quite like this extended part of the track; the vocals are echoed by backing singers which brings much more depth to the song. The bass guitar is also quite good on this and I actually start to like the vocals.

The intro to 'Minimum Wage' has a slight exotic feel to it but this soon fades when the beat and vocals come in. The vocals are whiny and the lyrics depressing; something we certainly don't need on the run up to Christmas!

Maybe McCombs thinks that by singing depressing songs people will be able to think themselves lucky but I'm afraid I like to hear upbeat good feeling songs to put a smile on my face.

3

Helena Rea