Once upon a time, NME had a TV channel. It was courtesy of that channel that I discovered Lissie, more specifically through the video for her incredible track In Sleep which had its video play on loop back in Spring 2010.

By Graeme Smith

The track was taken from Lissie’s breakthrough album Catching A Tiger which turned ten years old last year. Thanks to the pandemic, this anniversary edition was put on ice until this year but it’s been worth the wait. Casual Lissie fans like me will have heard the singles like In Sleep and When I’m Alone countless times but, for me, this has been an opportunity to dig deeper into the album’s twelve storytelling tracks and discover some lost gems, in particular the vaudevillian cleverly-written opener Record Collector and the wonderfully country Little Lovin’.

Those who know the album well, though, are also in for a treat. As well as the remastered versions of the twelve original tracks, the anniversary edition includes five previously unreleased bonus tracks that were part of the original Catching The Tiger recording sessions. One of the tracks is It’s Not Me, which was released earlier this year as a taster. A delicately intimate track, its led by a happy-go-lucky melody and subtle electronic instrumentals.

The Catching The Tiger anniversary edition acts as a timely reminder of just how consistent Lissie, has been with the quality of her music. She’s moved on to bigger and better things and is now an internationally-renowned artist, but it was only ten short years ago when the majority of us were discovering her music for the first time.

The good news for Lissie fans, old and new, casual and diehard, is that there is more retrospective music on the way in the form of collected early works being released under the name Watch Over Me. Expect my review of that in due course.

Catching The Tiger (Anniversary Edition) will be available everywhere on 25 June 2021.