The Cave Singers - Invitation Songs

A day late and a dollar short doesn't really cover it. This record is six months old over here, nearly a year old in America, and I said I'd post the day before yesterday. But I've been giving it a thorough listen, and have written down some thoughts on it anyway.

To use an under-used term, this album is an earworm. It doesn't have an immediate impact that a rock record would have. But it does grow on you. It's very much in the vein of the New Folk Explosion that seems to have hit these shores in the last year or so. It's in the same category that Fleet Foxes and Dodos fall under, but doesn't sound terribly like either of those bands. It's bass driven, earthy folk music.

If I was going to try and pidegeonhole this trio, I'd say they remind me of Lyndsey Buckingham* orchestrating an acoustic Yo La Tengo jam session (especially on the album standout 'Helen'). Some people already have their mouth watering with that idea, and rightly so. This is music for grown ups. The band themselves appeared to have mellowed with age. Derek Fudesco was once in the visceral Murder City Devils and Pretty Girls make Graves, drummer Marty Lund formerly played with the excellently named Cobra High, and singer Pete Quirk was once fronting a post-punk outfit. To say this was a step away from their previous work would be a bit of an understatement.

You can download the excellent opening track, Seeds of Night from Matador. Give it a spin, see what you think.

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*I've just noticed they've listed Fleetwod Mac as an influence in their bio. Can you imagine how 'uncool' that would have been considered ten years ago?