| Katrina and the Waves 2 | |
| Type: | Album |
| Artist: | Katrina and the Waves |
| Cover: | Katrina and the Waves 2.jpg |
| Released: | 1984 |
| Recorded: | 1984 |
| Genre: | New wave |
| Length: | 35:11 |
| Label: | Attic |
| Prev Title: | Walking on Sunshine |
| Prev Year: | 1983 |
| Next Title: | Katrina and the Waves |
| Next Year: | 1985 |
Katrina and the Waves 2 is the second album by new wave band Katrina and the Waves, released in 1984 (see 1984 in music). The album was originally only released in Canada on the Attic Records label.[1] It was included on the 2003 compilation The Original Recordings 1983–1984, and also re-released with five bonus tracks in 2010 through the CGB label.[2] Six of the album's songs would be reworked for the band's major label debut Katrina and the Waves.
The album outtake "That's Just the Woman in Me" was covered by Celine Dion in 2007 on her Taking Chances album.[3]
Mark Deming, in a retrospective review for AllMusic, noted that the band had added a lot of "studio polish" to their sound on Katrina and the Waves 2. He wrote, "This was a good and a bad thing; the glossier production allows some of the finer details of Kimberley Rew's songwriting and guitar work to come to the surface, but the additional backing vocals, keyboards, and horns also clutter arrangements that had been lean and straightforward on their earlier recordings, and drummer Alex Cooper was asked to share percussion duties with a LinnDrum here, and as a result the music sounds stiffer and less energetic." Deming also noted that Rew, on tracks like "Cry for Me" and "The Game of Love", explored a "retro-styled pop sound that gave the recording a new twist."
Trouser Press wrote that, compared to the band's first album, Katrina and the Waves 2 "takes a harder-rocking bent, downplaying the tunefulness slightly to highlight jumping numbers like "She Loves to Groove," the nutty "Maniac House" and a powerful, Janis Joplin-like blues, "Cry for Me." They concluded that the album was "not as glorious as the debut, but a boss record nonetheless."[4]
Katrina and the Waves 2 was reissued in 2010 on the CGB label in a limited edition of 1000 copies, each individually numbered. It includes previously unreleased material and all tracks have been remastered from the original master tapes. The booklet includes detailed recording credits, band interviews, rare photos, and liner notes by former Attic Records employee Ralph Alfonso, who got the band signed to the label in 1983.[2]
Adapted from the album liner notes.[5]