Cavity

Laid Insignificant (reissue)

Written by: PP on 12/07/2008 03:55:12

As far as sludge metal/rock goes, I\'ve never been a big fan of the genre. Its droning guitar sound just seems to lead nowhere, dragging on endlessly without any easily distinguishable purpose. It\'s easy to appreciate the experimentalist nature of the music, however, or the artistic qualities that the music represents. But that\'s rarely enough to make a good album. Meet Cavity, the Miami, Florida based act that broke up in 2003, and their 1998 album \"Laid Insignificant\". This is a record that single handedly has me raising eyebrows for the sludge genre again, ironically, by appearing quite distant from the genre altogether. I guess that\'s why Hydra Head are re-issuing the album today.

Contrary to what we are used to hearing from the genre, Cavity speeds things up quite a bit. The droning guitar sound is still there, but it has been sped up significantly to create a strange mix of raging punk vocals and rumbling guitar distortion. Already the title track introduces a pace unusual to the sludge genre by kicking things off in a punk-ish manner, before the song slows down to the painfully creeping vocals and the sluggish guitars. But once we reach \"9 Fingers On The Spider\", the sludge reference is thrown to the background as the band destroys through the chaotic opening minutes of the song, instantly gaining credit from my side for daring to variate from the tired formula. The rhythm change back to sludge fits to the song fantastically, and as the song jumps back to the frantic guitars, you are left wondering why the band didn\'t write more songs of this sort back in the day. \"Spine I\" sees a return to the chaos after a lull in the disc, but the 37 seconds that it lasts leave the listener craving for more. The sequel \"Spine II\" fulfills that craving by throwing the listener right in the middle of a chaotic noise-core universe, before the sludge references are brought back in to slow the song down.

As the 5 and a half minute \"A Bitter Cold Spell\" closes the album with its haunted shrieks, you\'ve experienced sludge metal/rock at its very best. Although still classified mainly as sludge act, Cavity aren\'t afraid to break into a frantic punk rock riff, a thrashy moment, or into down-right chaos metal at times. \"Laid Insignificant\" features the painstaking slow parts, and contrasts them with the polar opposite fast bits, and it does so in a well executed, unpredictable manner, that keeps the listener on his toes at all times. In today\'s music industry, that\'s an achievement if something is.

Download: 9 Fingers On The Spider
For the fans of: Eyehategod, High On Fire, Baroness
Listen: Last.fm

Release date 08.04.2008 (Original release date 1998)
Hydra Head
Provided by Target ApS

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