Cave In - "White Silence" Review

Today we have something different to present our readers compared to the usual all hard all core stuff we post here. The following review is written by my friend Nick, who is a definite brutal music afficcionado (proven by standing the test of time!). I think that many hardcore kids will lend an ear to music like Cave In, as they are one of those bands that came out of the hardcore/metal scene and stepped away throughout their career -- but kept  making good music. Read on and find out why you should check out the band's heavy as fuck new album!

Back To The Roots (?)

It is really admirable  when a band can modify its style so dramatically and provide good material. Cave In seem to me like a phenomenon in the extreme music scene. Ok, extreme in some occasions, I agree. Personally I don’t know what to expect anymore when a Cave In album comes out.

White Silence is an 180o turn again for Cave In. On one hand you’ll find heavy, complex riffs, intense bass guitar and noisy guitar fill ups and on the other hand a more prog- rock approach with psycho-traveling songs and less aggression. There is an obvious influence on the sound and the style as also on the vocals, from the sound of the project bands of its members (Zozobra, Old Man Gloom), therefore along with the complex and fast riffs you‘ll find slow, drown, heavy parts and mid tempo songs.

But that is what happens only till the middle of the album, because as the album goes on, Cave In sound more like a prog-rock band than a sludge-doom-metal core one. Prog-rock with a post-rock aesthetic and with loads of psychedelic sounds is what you will find at the second half of the album. Clean vocals appear quite often but when they do so, they are either distorted or alongside with some brutal ones.  I know that the marriage of these styles sounds a bit chaotic and wired. But Cave In do it and most important they do it very well.

“White Silence” is a complete album. You won’t get bored listening to the album and you will definitely play it again and again. You will move your head up and down and gradually you will become heavier, drown back and get lost. The overall result: a dirty, sick and traveling sound with loads of upside downs which leads to a dirty, sick, album that travels you from aggression to relaxation.

Typical Cave In stuff right?