Matador has labelled the Cave Singers as a folk band, but this is folk reimagined through an indie-rock sensibility. It's true that the rhythms on this intriguing debut tend to recall a train rolling down the tracks - or, occasionally, a military band - and that the instrumentation rarely moves beyond gently strummed guitars, distant drums and the ghostly echoes of a harmonica, but the lyrics come from a different world: strange streams of consciousness that, every now and then, are interrupted by a more matter-of-fact pronouncement, such as (the threatening? celebratory?) " 'Cause round here folks do what they want". Throw in Pete Quirk's nasal vocals, and it's as if Arlo Guthrie had spent a year listening to nothing but Will Oldham and the Replacements, written a bunch of new stuff, then hired Low to back him.
Matador OLE7712