3 out of 5

Label: Valley King Records

Produced by: Cavity AD, Matt Baltrucki and Oz Del Castillo (recorded by)

The resurrection of Cavity completed with a name change, absorbing album title “After Death” into their official title, leaving the album to now be named as a haunt – a wraith.

This furthers the agenda of that previous release, but the title somewhat feels fitting: there is a kind of spectral nature to it, hanging around hallowed grounds and welling up to go ‘Boo’ but incorporeal all the same. The song names are all kind of purposefully metal, and the group fiddles around with its drone hardcore to interesting effect, though somewhat diminished returns, like they’d accomplished rattling their own cages on After Death, and are now okay exploring the graveyard a bit. That is absolutely interesting and worthwhile – I love the noise assault into which Softer Tombs grows, and the odd industrial ping around which Into Wolf is based – it’s just that, again, these feel more like pushing and pulling on stylistic levers than necessarily unleashing whatever needed to be unleashed on the preceding LP. I’d say this still holds together well, but closer The Possessed ultimately falls flat; the production here isn’t as raw as before, and I note there’s a mastering credit missing, so maybe there’s something to that. But also the band’s sound is a tad more “jangly” in general, and while I think that’s a net positive just in terms of trying something new, Possessed is longform drone with a repeated riff that can’t reach as deep without a rattling lowend; and as this closes things out, it adds drag to the end of an otherwise worthwhile if slightly wandering listen.