NewMusic First Spin: The Cave Singers
August 11th, 2009
If you’re still heartbroken over the demise of Pretty Girls Make Graves, well, it’s safe to say you won’t get your fix from The Cave Singers. After PGMG split, Derek Fudesco traded in the bass for an acoustic guitar and left behind the angular post-punk muscle he flexed in both PGMG, as well as the fiery rock and roll of his previous band, Murder City Devils (which he reunited with for a tour earlier this year). He then began plucking along with singer Peter Quirk and percussionist Marty Lund to a very different tune.
As they proved in 2007 with their their debut album, Invitation Songs, The Cave Singers may seem more aligned with the downhome, whiskey-soaked charm of earlier Ryan Adams and Langhorne Slim, but like those two shit disturbers, they’re frayed at the edges like any good punk band.
The band returned to Colin Stewart’s Hive in Vancouver, BC for album number two, Welcome Joy. With a richer sound full of new textures (thanks to some assistance from Amber and Ashley Webber of Lightning Dust), The Cave Singers move beyond any sort of trappings into a time capsule that smacks of airy, ’70s AM rock and standard alt-country.
Quirk’s voice is the band’s strongest asset, quivering words of loss and affection like there’s a bottle of Jim Beam clutched in his hand. Fudesco’s intricate guitar work is as much more pronounced this time around; on the rollicking Leap, where Quirk aches his pleas, the notes race from Fudesco’s acoustic like a wanted fugitive on a midnight run.
At the Cut turns up the guitars and the bass drums for a deep Southern tinge, equally as in debt to Exile On Main Street as it is CCR. Both I Don’t Mind and Hen of the Woods, on the other hand, have magical, sentimental washes to them that were last heard on Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk. Jangle keeps things contemporary, with a slice of Americana modeled after something suited for Adams’ Whiskeytown.
The Cave Singers aren’t your typical rootsy band, as they’re straddled somewhere between an indie rock past and a deep Southern sound. But that just makes Welcome Joy fine for either type of audience.
Listen to it here.
Artist: The Cave Singers
Album: Welcome Joy
Release Date: August 18, 2009
Label: Matador Records
Genre: Folk-Rock
Author: Cam Lindsay
Track Listing:
- Summer Windows
- Leap
- At The Cut
- Shrine
- Hen Of The Woods
- Beach House
- Jangle
- I Don’t Mind
- Townships
- Welcome Joy
Tags: first spin, the cave singers
Posted on Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at 4:09 pm by Alberto and is filed under Reviews, The New Music.
