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RCA / Hydra Head
Released: March 18, 2003 |
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Cave In
Believe it or not, it's actually harder to write shorter and more concise songs than it is to slop together a nine-minute-long space-rock opera. Look at The Beatles' Rubber Soul: almost every song is under three minutes long and the listening experience is completely satisfying." - Cave In guitarist/vocalist Stephen Brodsky... Which is not to say that Cave In's RCA debut "Antenna" doesn't have one or two full-on stellar excursions: One need only wade halfway into "Antenna" to be immersed in the eight-minute-plus odyssey of "Seafrost." To make that journey, however, is to witness a rapid succession of the Boston-based quartet's tightest, most focused, and dare we say, outright catchy moments to date in "Stained Silver," "Inspire," "Joy Opposites," "Anchor" and "Beautiful Son." In fact, track after track on "Antenna" represents another apex of Cave In's darkly melodic and consistently challenging evolution.""Antenna's" songs are for the most part shorter and somewhat more refined than other songs we've written in the past. We deliberately wanted to do this as a challenge to ourselves, more or less. If you listen to a song like "Requiem" from "Jupiter", a new song like "Inspire" comes across as more minimalist, dare I say even pop. This approach for the songs on "Antenna" was more or less an experiment for us."Hardly surprising talk, coming from a band whose fans and critics alike have described its since the hard right of the "Creative Eclipses" EP and the epic and defining "Jupiter" ( Hydra Head Records, 1999 and 2000 respectively) as a "departure." "The change might have seemed sudden," says guitarist Adam McGrath. "But if you'd lived in Boston around '98-'99 you would have seen a gradual change. We started experimenting with new sounds and eventually new ways of writing songs that we were all more comfortable with."The origins of Cave In can be traced to its 1995 genesis in a Methuen, Massachusetts basement, the band's earliest works documented by the "Beyond Hypothermia" compilation of early recordings and first proper album "Until Your Heart Stops". The two albums, both released 1998 on Hydra Head, served as fittingly perplexing starting points: Straight-up frozen metal with a series of gravel throated vocalists screaming themselves ragged, ending with founding guitarist Stephen Brodsky. This technically abrasive style steadily built Cave In a following in its native northeast, moving them out of suburban halls with stages that came unhinged and sandwiched drummer John-Robert Conners between his kit and their back walls.Cave In's first major evolutionary leap was largely accidental. Recorded for an aborted compilation, the song "Luminance" signaled a turn in an epic melodic mode that had early fans postulating that the band members had employed keyboards and synthesizers in its recording (They hadn't). Rounded out by four other tracks, these recordings became "Creative Eclipses". Cave In forged further onward and outward with "Jupiter". Released in June 2000, "Jupiter" stretched, twisted and shattered the mutant genres that had apparently only begun to emerge on "Creative Eclipses". The five of the album's eight tracks that exceeded the five-minute mark seemed to challenge their own structures, alternately careening into full-on prog-metallic fury and diffusing into interludes held together by the most delicate melodic strands. Elsewhere, the title track and "Brain Candle" proved the new Cave In could still deliver a focused punch inside of three and a half minutes. Not coincidentally, the new breed of Cave In fan seemed to multiply around this time... a change McGrath noticed in terms of "more diversity in gender and open-mindedness... It also seems we attract a sort of 'college age' crowd."
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