I doubt Kurt Warner is a Cave In fan (maybe he's more of an Underoath guy), but he should at least appreciate the similarities between their career arcs: While spending most of 2009 fending off retirement rumors, fans of each could look back on a decade-plus defined by quiet dependability and a mid-career identity crisis__.__ Cave In burst out of Boston's metalcore scene by shading their heaving, chop-heavy sound with enough prog and indie influences to make them safe for Radiohead fans. And they still do. But in 2003, they were briefly on major-label RCA and competing with Foo Fighters and AFI for airtime on MTV2. It's about as anachronistic as Warner in a New York Giants jersey, and about as fondly remembered.
2005's Perfect Pitch Black followed, with little else other than talk of Cave In's indefinite hiatus. When they did return last year with the Planets of Old 12" it seemed more of an assurance that they're still around than proof of their artistic vitality. It's less of an EP, damn near single-length, and each of its four tracks is nicely compartmentalized if not terribly diverse. And now it's being released on CD, along with a live DVD of a performance last year at Boston's Great Scott.
Opener "Cayman Tongue", by a large measure the slowest Planets track, finds Stephen Brodsky and Adam McGrath careening around a time signature damn near impossible to keep track of, yet a dominating low-end provides a visceral punch. Halfway through its six-plus minutes, they submerge into a miasma of feedback punctuated by full-band interruptions. It's initially startling, but they sort of overplay their hand-- this section of "Cayman Tongue" is longer than any of the tracks that follow and the ultra-modern production smooths out most of its dynamic edge.
The remainder of Planets of Old plays out like a series of windsprints. The first, "Retina Sees Rewind", sticks a Thin Lizzy riff into an electrical socket and showcases Brodsky's nasal singing, which sounds sort of like a sedate Geddy Lee. It's the hookiest of the four, especially since double-kick-drum scream machine "The Red Trail" is aerodynamic to the point that hooks would be considered a luxury. The fourth and final piece of Planets of Old, "Air Escapes", is a compact hearkening back to Antenna's more Clear Channel-flavored stylings, loud and super-compressed but ultimately letting Brodsky's just-tuneful-enough melodics punch through.
So in a span of time slightly equal to that of a latter-day Sunn O))) track, Cave In make their case for... well, it remains to be seen whether it's brand reinvigoration or a desire to shed light on a band that was probably "hipster metal" before anyone knew what that really meant. But Planets of Old might be too little, too late considering how narrow its range is-- the type of listener that might've made, say, Jupiter their sole metal purchase of the year has far more access to extremes either in volume or melody or texture. And while Planets of Old doesn't demand a whole lot of the listener, Cave In were considered great in large part because albums like Jupiter did.
