4 out of 5

Label: Level Plane

Produced by: Mark Smoot (recorded by, mastered by)

2002 was… a long time ago at the time of this writing, and will obviously become even moreso later on, unless, y’know, our perception of time changes at some point. But even given that, I’m guilty of viewing the early 2000s as a time by which a lot of the music I like had already had some of its main tenets outlined, and the bands in the wake of that have primarily been iterating on those tenets. Now I love those bands, and those iterations can be surprising, and mind-blowingly inventive, but I’ll generally be able to hear the bits and pieces that are being stitched together.

And then a band like City of Caterpillar will drop an album in 2002 that I’m initially just considering as a solid screamo punk / hardcore effort, until opener And You’re Wondering How A Top Floor Could Replace Heaven extends beyond that structure to its eight minute length, roping in elements of math and post-hardcore and ambience in a fashion that… well… it’s still unusual even by modern standards. Solid punker followup A Heart Filled Reaction To Dissatisfaction is a couple minutes, and so maybe the first rack was just a one-off, but again, I’ve misread CoC’s number: Minute-Hour-Day-Week-Month-Year- (The Faith’s In My Chest) tops out at nine minutes, and is an even smoother, broader mingling of all these elements, tossing in some solid post-rock heft in there as well.

These patterns continue throughout the album, flipping between tighter tunes / moments that fully sell the punk attitude of this appearing on Level Plane records, and then stretching out to more patient and atmospheric territories, effected with – this is probably the important bit – no sense of overreach or forced poignancy that I’d say plagues bands who do the hardcore genre-skipping thing with prog and theme albums; while I’m surprised at the twists and turns of this album, it’s also an appreciation of how naturally it’s all pulled off – how the band immediately makes it feel like it’s just part of their wheelhouse, and was the plan from the start.

The album is still rough around the edges in its own way, though. I do wish the vocal presence was a bit stronger or more notable, either providing clearer lyrics that match the intensity of their delivery and / or the depth of the compositions, and though I’ve praised the general seamlessness of the album, there are some gaps when the band transitions from punk to otherwise that could’ve been tightened up. Or… maybe just produced / mastered better, and this goes to the vocals as well: there’s so much going on on this album that it simply deserves better recording and leveling. It’s rather tinny, and only has dimension when the group is louder, but even then, you need to have headphones / speakers you can jack up quite loud to get the most out of the tunes, though I think it says something that a lot of that still comes through even if you’re not hearing it all.

Discerning heads in the hardcore scene will mention this band if you haven’t heard of them, and you’ll likely think – yeah, sure, I know all the corners of the genre; I know the influencers. But then you’ll give it a passing listen, and you’ll get it. Calling City of Caterpillar ahead of their time is incorrect. This album exists outside of any such metric.