Caw! Caw!
(Trust Tapes)
Caw! Caw! seems destined to deliver the kind of sweat-drenched baptism from which audiences tend to stagger with that inspired, rather odd, feeling of having received riches far exceeding the price of admission.
Plenty of passion seeps through Bummer Palace, but for those who live for over-the-top rock intensity, its digital, albeit palpable (via CD), presence is just a tease in relation to the live experience. The guitar playing and melody lines are so deeply lovely, the vocalizing so from-the-soul/ego-to-the-wind, the songwriting so consistently engaging, and the band (which has been playing together since high school, for about eight years) so intuitively conjoined, one is inclined to overlook the similarity of opener "Toothless" to something-or-other from Weezer circa Pinkerton, along with the fact it's kind of weird how girlishly the lead vox intones -when the singer's not letting loose with an Exorcism-decibel howl. Or that some of the tracks take their time in getting to the good stuff ("Golden Teacher").
None of this holds any weight when the other side of the scale's weighted by the beautiful ferocity with which these guys knit pop melodies into perfectly appropriate strains of new wave, grunge, and punk. Some of these tracks ("Run and You Might Keep Your Lives," "My Starship") are just glorious, rock ‘n' roll majesty. And that's not something to proclaim - or be taken - lightly.
Standout Tracks: "My Starship," "Toothless," "Run and You Might Keep Your Lives, "Martyrs in Ice" MARY LEARY
