COLD CAVE @ THE ELECTRIC OWL 02/11/12

Arriving at the Electric Owl I wasn’t sure what was to come. Last year when I reviewed Cold Cave at the Biltmore I was thoroughly impressed with the amount of energy throughout the blue light driven set. The first thing I noticed when the curtains drew was the lack of their touring drummer, Alex Garcia-Rivera.

The set began with a Ian Dominick Fernow driven noise music. As Wesley Eisold, the vocalist and primary songwriter took the synths they began to create a wave of noise that overtook the ears of the patrons bar chatter. As the epic frequencies drew quiet, the two piece broke into a sampled version of ‘The Laurels of Erotomania’ I felt the crowd rise to a modest head bob. Up next was ‘Underworld’ and as the chorus broke the entire P.A. cut out, leaving only the stage monitors emoting the vocals and synthesisers. Cold Cave was cold as ice, and continued through the song as if nothing had changed. Impressive.

Cold Cave creates a feel to their performance that almost gives you chills with the constant blue light, black leather jackets, black jeans, sub-culturistic body language, attitude, presence, mic-stand jabs, and flailing quasi-hardcore-thrash dance moves you wish you had the confidence to pull off.

With the P.A. back on, the two piece sang an old song with a repetitive vocal line overtly yelled by Wesley, “FUTURE, IT’S NOT FOR ME”. As the crowds position on the song wavered, it defiantly displayed the emotion that the band shows for their craft. Lots of noise, almost too much. It did all come to make perfect sense when the noise launched into ‘Burning Sage’ the longest and darkest song from their newest record “Cherish the Light Years”. Watching how they recreate the sounds within that track was amazing.

Lastly, they played ‘Confetti’, my favorite song from the show last year. As I would expect it was a crowd pleaser motivating dance moves by the comfortable, but full floor. Then that was it! People seemed to think the 30 minute  set was unacceptable and were calling for an encore, but no encore came. Don’t always expect to get what you anticipate.

It was a great show for a two piece, and without the drummer they still retained the energy that I expected. Cold Cave continues to evolve, although their direction maybe as unpredictable as their set at the Owl.

Rollin Rater: 7/10

Words by Roland

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