"The Weight" - Caddywhompus

Caddywhompus has gone great lengths to create a seamless universe with "The Weight," blending wavering guitar drones, vocal vibrato and undulating waves of crashing drums to remove the lines between energy and matter. A listen to this EP doesn't bring you into a room with the band, you become the room - the sounds emanating from within, building into forms then dissolving but never fully dissipating.

The traditional guitar/drum/voice interplay is blurred around the edges with a heavy dose of deep reverb, slap-back delay, and touches of 8-bit and noise, but the overall "mic in a room" aesthetic is too painstaking to call lo-fi. And it's worth noting here that the songs are energetic, melodic, memorable and precisely executed. The brilliance of "The Weight" is that the subtlety of the musicianship pays deference to the comfortable distance of the listener. While each song covers a wide range of energetic output, the effect is not one of manipulation of the senses, rather a natural progression of events. Think less a roller coaster ride and more a day of surfing (not that I'd know).

With "The Weight," Caddywhompus has proven itself capable of executing a masterful artistic vision from start to finish, in composition and production. I've followed the band with joy through its EPs and full length "Remainder," and am thrilled by the way the band has refined, rather than pushed past, it's earlier forms.

So many great works are undercut with remarks like "the best is yet to come" or "this band is going places." Well, a great work is here. Enjoy it, celebrate it. It's free to download. You can't even pay for it if you try. (Actually you can buy "The Weight" on tape, or get their full length "Remainder" on cd/vinyl at Community Records.) I must remember to thank them.

http://communityrecords.org/theweight/