Paper Scissors Stone was the fourth and final album by Welsh

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 band Catatonia

Catatonia (band)

Catatonia were an alternative rock band from Wales who gained a national following in the United Kingdom in the mid to late 1990s. The band consisted of Cerys Matthews on vocals, Mark Roberts on guitar, Paul Jones on bass , Owen Powell on...

. It was released on August 6, 2001 in the UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, and reached #6 on the UK album chart.

The album only had one single taken from it, "Stone by Stone" - the group's final single release. Fittingly, the ending of the video for the song features the band members all abandoning their instruments and walking away. The band had announced on their website that the next single was to be the rocky "Is Everybody Here On Drugs", although the announcement was quickly removed once it was clear that Catatonia had reached the end of the road.

The band were unable to promote the album, albeit with the exception of an appearance on Later...with Jools Holland and a few performances of "Stone by Stone", as Cerys Matthews

Cerys Matthews

Cerys Elizabeth Matthews is a Welsh singer and songwriter. She is known as the lead singer of the Welsh rock band Catatonia, her more recent bilingual solo career, and for a 1998 Christmas duet with Tom Jones.-Biography:...

 was being treated for alcohol and smoking problems.

The album's cover and in-sleeve photos were taken from the film, Tiger Bay

Tiger Bay (film)

Tiger Bay is a 1959 British crime drama film directed by J. Lee Thompson and produced and co-written by John Hawkesworth. It stars John Mills as a police superintendent who investigates a murder, his daughter Hayley Mills, in her first major film role, as a girl who witnesses the murder, and Horst...

, which starred Hayley Mills

Hayley Mills

Hayley Mills is an English actress. The daughter of John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell, and sister of actress Juliet Mills, Mills began her acting career as a child and was hailed as a promising newcomer, winning the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for Tiger Bay , the Academy Juvenile Award...

. Hayley was given a thank-you in the album. The album was dedicated to close friend and roadie Barry Cawley, who was killed in a road accident on his bicycle in Betws-y-Coed

Betws-y-Coed

Betws-y-Coed is a village and community in the Conwy valley in Conwy County Borough, Wales. It has a population of 534. The name Betws or Bettws is generally thought to be derived from the Anglo-Saxon Old English 'bed-hus' - i.e. a bead-house - a house of prayer, or oratory...

, North Wales in July 2000. The track, "Imaginary Friend", was written about him. The album title refers to the game rock-paper-scissors

Rock-paper-scissors

Rock-paper-scissors is a hand game played by two people. The game is also known as roshambo, or another ordering of the three items ....

.

Track listing

1. "Godspeed"
2. "Immediate Circle"
3. "Fuel"
4. "What It Is"
5. "Stone By Stone"
6. "The Mother Of Misogyny"
7. "Is Everybody Here On Drugs?"
8. "Imaginary Friend"
9. "Shore Leave"
10. "Apple Core"
11. "Beautiful Loser"
12. "Blues Song"
13. "Village Idiot"
14. "Arabian Derby "