Cave Women
– S/T (Independent)
With a name that suggests garage rock played with
puckish, punkish abandon, Cave Women’s debut album provides wholly unexpected
pleasures. The five women from Sacramento, Casey Lipka (bass, vocals), Alicyn
Yaffee (guitar, vocals), Emily Messick (vocals, melodica, accordion, guitar),
Kim Davis (vocals, flute, sax) and Vanessa Cruz (drums), reject guitar thrash
and throttled vocals and instead head straight for the jazz-folk jugular.
Four-part harmonies vie with world rhythms and a variety of non-rock
instrumentation, and they consistently remember to pack tunes and hooks.
All five members carry impressive musical CVs, and
there’s a wealth of experience between them. It’s perhaps surprising then that
the presentation isn’t quite as showy as expected. There are solos, and some of
the playing is inspired – the interaction between flute and guitar on “Fall” impresses more each time I hear it – but the
song and vocals invariably take centre stage. Other highlights are plentiful; “Blizzard” loops and cajoles, and concludes with a
sublime guitar solo, and “Balloons”, with its
mix of time signatures and jerked rhythms contains almost an album’s worth of
ideas on its own.
Tony S.
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