4 out of 5

Label: Reptilian Records

Produced by:

For your edification: no one does this like Cavity. They have remained the kings of punky doom sludge in their former incarnation, and then as elder leaders of deathly minimalism as Cavity A.D., one of the most perfect re-brands of all time. I can, and have, traced the success of many albums to the production of those albums, but you have some groups – like Cavity – who are capable of busting through any such limitations.

That being said, when you remaster the kings’ oldest album, it’s just adding gold lining to that perfection.

Human Abjection was already a masterpiece of nihilistic rocking rage, and proof of the way a band’s intensity can, as put above, bust through any recording limitations; if there’s something to complain about with the original recording – it’s that it’s too loud. Reptilian Records’ remaster “corrects” this without diminishing any of the punishment found in Rene Barge’s howls, and the shredding dual guitars, and the cavernous low-end, and properly rounds out Cavity’s sound to bring it in line with later releases from this era, like Supercollider.

The material here definitely leans more towards punk, but the bluesy undertone of the riffage is in place, as is the general Cavity sound of a kind of stutter-step hardcore – slow down, speed up, slow down. But the defining factor, if I can find any more terms for it, is just the absolute menace of this thing. Rene is screaming versus his eventual croaked yell, which is where we link to the album’s only misstep in my ears – the thrashy, 39-second “O.T.D;” for a group that’s already assaulting your ever aural sense, we don’t really gain much by switching, momentarily, to straight forward grind.

But that is only :39 seconds. And the rest of the album is gold.

We’d find Cavity reaching into post-metal before their initial break; the sludge elements would become more pronounced than on Human Abjection; but even in their raw-er form, when the group was closer to heavy rock and punk, the music – the menace – is undeniably Cavity, and it’s great to have this album back in an accessible form. (That sounds phenomenal, while being slightly kinder on the ol’ ear drums!)