To be an American fan of UK new wave in the 1980s was to acknowledge that your homegrown culture wasn't giving you what you needed. New Order, the Cure, Depeche Mode, and Siouxsie and the Banshees made broadly appealing pop music but also made sense to outcast kids in the U.S. because they clearly came from somewhere else. Drop any of them into your average American town and they would be mocked; the straight world would make fun of their haircuts and clothing and make-up. That was part of what drew people to them. They were theatrical and sensitive. They were singing about feelings. They were androgynous. Those drawn to this music at the time articulated a cluster of associations and feelings around these qualities that endures two decades later.
Cold Cave's 2009 full-length debut, Love Comes Close, tapped into the emotional space of 80s new wave. It wasn't just that the group sounded like bands from that decade, though that was certainly part of it. But like Peter Murphy, Ian Curtis, or Robert Smith, Cold Cave leader Wesley Eisold has a voice that's both strong and vulnerable, a low croon with a deeply embedded ache. And when used with basslines and spiky guitars that sound lifted from some lost band on Factory, his voice perfectly conveyed the drama of being a teenage outsider.
That feeling continues on Cherish the Light Years, but here everything has been blown up to a degree that borders on absurdity. From opening cut "The Great Pan Is Dead", Cherish feels like a John Hughes film projected in an IMAX theater-- guitars wail, synths scream, and the whole thing is loud, loud, loud. And Eisold responds in kind, his voice rippling with a new desperation-- he'll come running as stars explode, hearts break, and we all yearn for salvation. It's a bracing and brilliant album opener, stating in no uncertain terms, "This is now a different band." Just a few short years ago, Cold Cave were a home-recording project beholden to the sound of early industrial and minimal synth. The throbbing murk in that music made you think something was wrong with your stereo-- many tracks barely qualified as noise, forget about songs. But on Cherish, Cold Cave sound like they're storming the gates of the mainstream, ready to appeal to anyone with an ear for big, bold, goth-pop.
And they succeed. All nine tracks are well crafted and memorable, with sections that poke out on first listen and worm their way into your consciousness with further plays. "Underworld USA" begins with a dark synth thump and a lonely guitar but quickly explodes into a raging anthem for the disaffected. Eisold wants to dream and cry and let the night pass him by-- he sings of the meek inheriting the earth and rhymes "missionary" with "cemetery." And then "Confetti" is subtler, opening with a delicate synth line and a gorgeous reverb-laden guitar that sounds lifted from a 4AD record circa 1986. "I feel so good on the outside," Eisold sings-- when you're feeling miserable, you'll take what you can get. These songs are tuneful and empathetic studded with sharp observations; it's the kind of music that makes you wish your life would fall apart a little bit, just so that you could wallow in it.
But the songs never stay in one place. The contrast between "Alchemy Around You", which adds a trumpet and thickens the production further, and the following "Burning Sage", a bleak and bass-heavy tune with synth from noise-master and CC member Dominick Fernow that hearkens back to the band's industrial origins, brings to mind the eclectic experimentation of Kiss Me-era Cure. These guys are ready to fold anything into their aesthetic. It all gets a little claustrophobic at points, and when that happens the vocals of Caralee McElroy, who contributed to Love Comes Close, are missed. But if Cherish finds Cold Cave going for it and trying their hand at new wave pop anthems, they're still sweating the details. These songs and arrangements are like catnip for those who crave the bleak romantic end of new wave.
There is one issue that keeps Cherish from being an unqualified home run: The mix and mastering job are brickwalled to the extreme, squashing all the production detail and rendering this 40-minute LP tiring to listen to as a whole. It was a strange choice to make this record so incredibly loud and compressed; this music wants to bring you closer, but the monolithic sonics have a way of keeping you at arm's length. Not to mention that this kind of ultra-loud mastering brings to mind albums that touch on some of the same sounds and feelings but in a heavy-handed way-- Bloc Party's Intimacy or the Killers' Day & Age, say. Considering how much care went into the songwriting and overall conception, we have to assume that Cold Cave have their reasons for wanting the album to sound like this. But to my ears, this music deserved better. Even so, taken as a whole, Cherish has the feel of a breakthrough, and Wes Eisold comes across as an artist with a vision that will resonate with a larger audience.
