Beach Sloth

Caught In The Wake Forever - Against A Simple Wooden Cross 7.9

                ‘Caught in the Wake Forever’ makes spent-sound music. This is the sound of being totally devoid of energy. Everything is stripped clean. All that remains is the barest bones structure of songs. What makes this so enjoyable is its simplicity. Parts of this appear to be heavily influenced by more atmospheric or moody bands such as Low (with its extremely slow tempo) and Sigur Ros (with its uneasy sparse quality). The sheer length and repetition of the songs helps them sink into the mind. Moody is one way to describe it as it goes from hope to despair to sadness to anger. 

                ‘Scottish Grief’ is a multi-suite piece. For the first half Fraser remains relatively calm. This transforms into a wave of distortion (near-noise) before pummeling deep down into despair. Listening to the last minute or so is rather heart-wrenchingly sad. Moments remind me of ‘The Remote Viewer’s’ approach to electronic-laden sadness. Here the electronic effects are much more subtle. Field recordings help keep the entire piece feeling rustic. ‘Last of the Heroin’ is probably the best of the bunch. Reminiscent of Dean Robert’s loosely structured pieces, it feels completely free. This is probably the most hopeful Caught in the Wake gets throughout the whole album. 

                 Overall these songs lock arms with each other. Each other seems to support the other’s fragile state of mind. This unity creates a rather enjoyable take on some extraordinarily sad music. Glad there remain artists out there with new takes on the old ‘Slowcore/Sadcore’ style.