3 out of 5

Label: Roadburn Records

Produced by: James Plotkin (mastered by)

After Caleb Scofield passed, Cave In members Stephen Brodsky and Adam McGrath – alongside other supporting efforts – got together for a set of unplugged takes on Jupiter and beyond Cave In tracks, using the night as hopeful catharsis through music for friends and fans.

Having not been there, Steve presumably does voice and acoustic guitar; Adam presumably adds extras, whether that’s effects, other guitars, keys, etc.

A hardcore band going relatively acoustic is firstly far from novel, but especially for this band: Jupiter introduced a comparatively softened sound for CI that’s replicated here through choice tunes, and Steve has a wealth of output that’s more crooner than screamer in nature. Still, if you had missed out on those releases, have no doubt: Brodsky can sing in his range quite well and easily fills a small concert hall with his chops, and the music chosen translates to this form quite perfectly, with an impressively effected set of musicality on display from the duo, making the psychedelic / studio elements of the tunes come to life in a stripped down format.

If you’re all in on Cave In, the recording is quality – mastered by Plotkin, that’s a great guarantee, but the source material was clearly handled well to pick up good warmth and depth – and the intimate takes on these tracks (some slowed to a more crooner crawl) makes them unique.

But: setting aside the emotional impact for those affected, and focusing on the music itself: I’m one of those types who’s more critical of latter day Cave In, with the stuff starting with Jupiter essentially making the band poster children for doth-protest-too-much hardcore kids who kinda want to grow up, stop yelling, and listen to the Beatles. That produced Antenna, which is by and large a good record, but also swamped with the kind of “we’re going to channel Radiohead” energy that smelled of the above protest. Like, just embrace being a pop rock band.

The group’s catalogue then (to me) becomes a history of that self-denial, first jumping back to generic hardcore for mainstream failure bona fides, then pecking at ways of combining a clear love for metal with the Radiohead and Beatles stuff, and never quite getting to something that sounded necessarily unqiue, or broke ground the way Until Your Heart Stops did.

This kind of focus also draws attention to one of the band’s weaker points: Steve’s lyrics. His attempts at soul gazing tend to be rather surface level to me, verging on cringe, and when we move away from shouting, and into “progressive” music versus metal, the vocal layer becomes highlighted…

To be clear, I listen to Cave In! I’m critical but enjoy them, and Steve is a creative powerhouse, with some of his other bands – like Mutoid Man – arguably the ideal outlets for his skills. But the parts of Cave in highlighted here are the more generic, overwrought bits I tend not to enjoy, slowed down in a way that even robs some songs of their melodies. Later in the show, the duo gets some steam going and I nod along, although then it feels rather abrupt to get hardcore vocals on a pretty epic rendition of __epic; while my favorite take from the set, it also feels like it comes from a differently-toned show.

So the rating hopefully represents a medium between all these things: diehards get some solid, emotive renditions; I’m sure the actual live experience was pretty moving; but more casual Cave In fans might cringe at the NPR vibes here, setting aside the intentions of the format and acknowleding the solid cores behind the majority of the selected songs.