Not Many Experts

When poet and author Wesley Eisold formed Cold Cave in 2005, it was clear from his background in the hardcore music scene and his intellectualism that his band was not going to turn out to be a sub Libertines mélange of indifference. It should hardly come as a surprise, then, that their debut LP released on Matador on November 3rd, “Love Comes Close”, almost reinvents pop music. Seriously. Against seedy musical backdrops, Eisold tugs his pop hooks into warped anthems of nihilism, and draws them into avenues that they had barely explored previously. “Love Comes Close” is a subtly intricate album that slowly reveals its secrets, but is also peppered with pop hooks that lend an immediacy.

In many ways, “Love Comes Close” comes across as a clinically depressed Animal Collective, with a cold, metallic heart instead of Animal Collective’s psychedelic, worldly centre . This is because, in the same way that “Merriweather Post Pavilion” was, essentially, traditional pop music that had been twisted and filtered until it was barely recognisable, “Love Comes Close” is also an album that you would never initially assume to be pop. However, once you peel away the lyrics, subversive synths and drones, you are left with a skeleton that is very much indebted to simple pop songs. And just in the same way as “Merriweather Post Pavilion”, this album more than deserves recognition in the imminent end of year lists.

Cold Cave – Life Magazine

Cold Cave – Love Comes Close

Cold Cave – The Trees Grew Emotions And Died