Cold Cave
Love Comes Close
Matador
Matador Records seems to have a knack for scooping up acts that are about to break big. Like they did nearly a decade ago with Interpol, the stalwart indie-ish label has found another Northeast band to nurture with Cold Cave.
Led by hardcore vet Wes Eisold, the NYC/Philly-based group has quite the underground pedigree with members having toiled in respected acts like Xiu Xiu and Some Girls. Yet the musical efforts of the past barely inform the present as Cold Cave’s full-length debut Love Comes Close is basically an album replete with sexy, synthetic pleasures. While the noisy, beatless yet intriguing opener “Cebe and Me” might leave you feeling a bit dirty, the band quickly cleans you off with the title track which sounds like their homage to New Order’s “Temptation” – not that there’s anything wrong with that.
In fact, the band seems pretty content to keep their influences close to their robotic hearts, whether channeling early Human League on the dark new-wave clip “The Laurels of Erotomania” or recalling early ’90s goth/EBM on “Heaven Was Full.” While Eisold’s vocals barely stretch beyond a brooding bellow or low-key croon – reminding us yet again of the late, great Ian Curtis – a vast range isn’t needed as the lyrics, beats, and melodies as is do enough to entice us over and over again.
