Folk played with a firm hand is much like the regular sort, only so much more, you know, firm, sure of itself, the kind of folk that would lead in a handshake. Which might sound like little in the scheme of things – being stuck with a feather twice as hard is still just being struck with a feather after all – but it can make the world of difference. That the Cave Singers all come from more affirmative backgrounds (past ‘employers’ include emo-renegades Pretty Girls Make Graves and filthy blues dukes the Murder City Devils) might have something to do with it, but doesn’t influence their current situation in any other way. And this is most definitely firm folk, played indeed with firm hands. It’s not that it’s just played louder or artificially enhanced with amp dials cranked. This is different to, say, the emotional waves manipulated by Bright Eyes when Conor’s feeling enraptured or cranky and he shouts a little louder or scolds his guitar. The individual strands are without exception delicately rendered, but they’re laid down with such a hoarse, worldly attitude that goes deeper than surface characteristics.
It reminds in that sense of alt-blues rabble Murder By Death, minus the sledgehammer impact, in the dry dusty heat of evening. Drums are played like a voodoo ritual (see the dark ‘New Monuments’ and bone rattling ‘Dancing On Our Graves’) and vocals claw out of singer Pete Quirk as though held on the lip of a trance-like state, an earnest, reedy croak full of humility and certainty that lands somewhere between Bob Dylan and Perry Farrell. The atmosphere of tracks swings between the dark and minor key (take the maudlin pace and choral wake ambience of ‘Called’) and twinklingly hopeful (the weightless space-country stargazing of ‘Helen’ and bluegrass ‘Elephant Clouds’). Johnny Cash is evoked often as a constituent of the album’s foundations, with regards to overall poise, the effective use of repetitive refrains and the sense of place. Up top, we hear Ryan Adams in one of his less arrogant guises. All in all though they feel like a rare example of a band digging their own hole in a genre that’s already excavated inside out. And you do need firm hands for that kind of work.