Everything about Cold Cave just screamed “bah humbug” to me. Their sour grapes promo photo looks like somebody watched too many hours of “The Kardashians.” The title of their track “The Great Pan Is Dead” looks like it was pulled from a publishing template of Nostalgic Melancholia. Two artists that Pandora pulled up as a “like” Cold Cave were Xiu Xiu and Suicide.
And yet this song, culled from their forthcoming full-length “Cherish the Light Years,” is one of the most mystifyingly electric, intuitive, ballsy demon exorcisms I’ve heard this year, at least from the synth-rock camp. Wesley Eisold moans about salvation and “crushing fears,” as a machine gun of high-frequency keys will ward away any unwanted teenagers from your door stop. It’s like literate Faint run through a grossly righteous mix and lush lessons from Spiritualized. I promise, those four minutes fly.
This is the first song on the forthcoming full-length… it existed in some half-finished way in my head for almost two years. It had to be the first song on the album and serve as a declaration of everything I want to assert through Cold Cave,” Eisold explains. “It”s a love letter to the path that has led me to where I am now, to loss and love and friends and enemies and the dizzied and blurred ways of the world. This song and record is about magic, preservation, youth and movement… I miss a lot of people. I used to deal with that by assuring myself I”d see them again. I know that can”t be true. This song is dedicated to all of them.”
So I was kinda wrong about the frownie-hipster thing, so sorry guys. This track is a real gem. Download it for free at the band’s Tumblr.
“Cherish the Light Years” is out on April 5 via Matador.