One of my life’s great mysteries and of complete and utter irrelevance to the rest of the human race is how I have never managed to see Caves play live. This is despite the fact that I consider myself a fan, have all their records at home and have been to at least 3 gigs that they played at and never made it in time to see them. Contributing factors were the public transport in London and also the fact that I always used to underestimate the time it would take me to get down to Kingston from North London and so miss bands that were playing early evening.
Admittedly I was expecting to like this one and they had me hooked from the moment the riff starts ringing on the opener and singer Louise Hanman yells the opening line of “I don’t care, I don’t care, go fuck yourself”. The familiar urgency is there from that moment and it rides on the crest of a wave throughout bursting with energy. The album is over in just over 26 minutes and is typically raw, driven and dominated by Louise’s powerful vocals and Caves’ trademark woah-woahs. They go full pelt through most of the tracks and only really pause for breath on the title track, which sees her singing over a lone guitar, and also on the opening to the closing track, “Ender”. The bass player takes lead vocals on a couple of the stronger tracks too. This is a really solid and consistent release and although my favourite Caves song remains the simple pop of “New Orleans” I think this is their strongest set of songs so far and tracks like “Rubino” and “<3 Koala” run it very close. I have had this on high rotation since being sent this. Ace.
On another note, I really like the cover art. For about a week I thought it was a hand but it is obviously a cat.