It’s a prospective challenge for a trio like Cavern, who, as yet another act to materialise from the sludge woodwork of Baroness and Mastodon, face the test of striding past more than two or three albums before being swallowed unreservedly into the depths of bandcamp. Prototyping this style on a debut that has been encircled, condensed and then stretched to its most outer extremities by others won’t save them from the album’s unconcealed allusions to some already named inspirations. But, if it’s one thing to question what one does with a sound, then it is most certainly another to verify that when done well, that same sound still bears an application as a result. Cavern redeem this authenticity and do it noticeably well considering this is their first venture into the process that is album making. The production is fitting, the rough timbres of the instruments are lifelike and reassuring; the compositions too share similar ounces of legitimacy. If anything could reaffirm this, it is the droning first chord of “Far Beyond and Evergreens” or the often indecipherably distant and abrasive vocals from Zach Harkins which is equally suitable—his own guitar work too has its stakes in applicability. “Pavement” is the album’s highlight, portioning the aforementioned qualities while veiled under dirty tonalities, sounding like something they can safely call their own amid sustained guitar (both clean and overdriven) and pulsating ride cymbal jams. That is about as far as I can go to describe Cavern though before I’d be repeating myself. Understandably, they’re wearing their influences with pride, pushing the envelope about as far as one would naturally come to expect accordingly. If you listen to the album from that perspective, then it will most certainly be an enjoyable, transitory listen, perhaps even more if you let it. For the band, Cavern as such, serves as a partial guarantee that what they’re currently doing—mixing hints of thrash with sludge—bears the right ingredients and the right foundations to ensure that developments towards any distinctions will likely warrant them further success.
Haha I know how it goes. Sometimes you just can't make a sentence work the way you want it to, like the child's game in which you have to push the shapes into the proper holes.
