Caged Grave

If you read the page on this site titled ‘about this blog’ (link at the top), then you will know that this blog is not about reviews. This is just an online diary of records I pick up. I do get a few emails from various labels or bands asking if I can review their record, or link people to their latest video or whatever. Most of these requests I just delete without replying. As far as I’m concerned, anyone asking me to help with any kind of promotion has completely missed the point, and therefore I can’t be bothered wasting my time to tell them that’s not what I’m about. But once in a blue moon, someone who very much does get this blog will get in touch and ask if they can send me a record. The good thing is that anyone who knows this blog knows what I like, so chances are the record they want to send me is going to be something decent.

A few short weeks ago I received an email from Craigos. Dude lives in Australia and has a band called Caged Grave. He wanted to send me their latest record, a 7" titled 'Gutless'. Well, until he emailed me, I don’t think I had heard his band before, mainly because I don’t actually listen to too many bands via the internet due to being old fashioned. But given he was offering to send me a record at his own expense, I figured I would check it out. If I didn’t like it then I could at least save him a few dollars in postage costs. So I found the Cagedgrave bandcamp, and about thirty seconds later was replying to his email with my address. The noise coming out of my speakers was brutal, and seemed to be was exactly what I needed in my life at that moment in time. So I gave him address and a couple of weeks later a 7” showed up.

I was lucky enough to get sent one of the clear vinyl copies, of which there are only 100.

This comes in a black and white sleeve, and the band logo is stamped on the paper dust sleeve. I'm generally not good at describing bands, but right off the bat when I saw this I was thinking of Mind Eraser. I guess it's the black and whiteness of it, and the font used for the band name.

If you're still wondering what this band sounds like, the back of the sleeve gives you a clue. I mean, ten songs on a 7" is never gonna be some emo prog rock record.

Interestingly, the band describe themselves as 'powerviolence'. That, to me, is a term that I associate with the mid to late 90s bands that played songs for thirty seconds at 100mph with indecipherable grunted vocals, like Spazz or Charles Bronson. Stuff that was recorded badly. Stuff that seemed kinda cool, but was ultimately not easy to listen to. Caged Grave does not fit this description at all, as the songs are well played and recorded, and sound hard as nails. It's as if Caged Grave is the long lost brother of Mind Eraser who just so happens to have emigrated down under, and who phones now and again to shout at you and tell you how much he hates you.

Check out the Caged Grave Bandcamp and see what I'm waffling on about.

PS Thanks, Craigos. I really appreciate you sending me this.