For the life of me I cannot remember how I first found out about this band. I think I might have seen a review for
Antenna in a Maxim. I first downloaded
Terminal Deity off of this album and upon first listen I could not get into it at all. After broadening my musical horizons a bit I happened to listen to this song again and absolutely loved it.
Cave In have a type of chugging heavy vibe going on throughout most of the album with lots of atmospheric noise in the background. It could almost be described as metal with a spacey vibe in the background. Don’t mistake that as a sign they don’t play heavy and hard. Some songs are fast and crazy, perfect for moshing or just getting nuts.
They tend to incorporate quite a few great riffs into each one of their songs. They don’t get that repetitive feeling that some music has but they never come out of context with the song. A staple of their music has been quick tempo changes driving bass, loud guitars and brutal drumming. They craft the song structures very well. Brodsky actaully sings most of the clean vocals and Scofield tends to do a lot of screaming which is fine because it fits the music. Scofield sings alot on this album so I find it ironic he's listed as a backup vocalist. He has a voice that is a bit above the guttural growl of death metal bands so it’s still hard to understand what he says at times.
It would be difficult for me to pick out the best songs because they are all great tracks. I can’t say any of the songs on this album are bad; this is one of those albums that I don’t skip any tracks. I guess a band to kind of compare them to would be Slayer who has a definite influence here. If you heard
Antenna and wrote them off I would give this a listen this is what they were originally about. You can hear the touches of this record on
Perfect Pitch Black which was quite good also.
Favorite Tracks (after some thought):
Moral Eclipse
Terminal Deity
Juggernaut
Until Your Heart Stops
Controlled Mayhem Then Erupts
Stephen Brodsky – Vocals/Guitar/Keyboards
Caleb Scofield – Bass/Backup Vocals
Adam McGrath – Guitar
John-Robert Connors – Drums
