Album Review: Cavern Deep – Cavern Deep (Interstellar Smoke Records)

Cavern Deep is a slow, heavy band, founded 2019, by members from Zonaria and Swedish retro riffsters Gudars Skymning. Their debut self-titled album is out on July 23rd 2021 via Interstellar Smoke Records.

A concept album, it tells the story of one archaeologist and 49 men. Who stand at the gates of a previously unknown civilization, for a moment staring down into the bowels of the mountain before they begin their decent. The journey downwards turn out to be more dangerous than expected, they climb down through whirling stairs lit only by organic fluorescent lights. Further down the path turns more and more crumbled, eventually they must use ropes to traverse the broken bridges and tunnels over the deep chasms below. Filled by the promise of treasure they continue downwards. Many men go missing as they’re tasked to explore diverting tunnels, they never return and their screams are followed by silence. the only thing found is their safety ropes, driven by greed the archaeologist continues the expedition.

It takes a special kind of band to deliver a concept that transports you to the exact location and situation that exists within it. To deliver the sense of wonder, impending danger and haunting horror that such a tale needs, shows that Cavern Deep are a special band. The eight tracks of this album take you deep underground, where greed overcomes sense and the end result is madness inducing.

Told through the medium of grubby doom, the instrumental side of the band is methodical and intensely heavy. Whereas the vocals are clean but with booming gravitas. You can hear them echo off the cavernous walls and into the dark depths.

It’s a fantastic concept, felt in the deep recesses of the mind. The eerie tone of Staring Down, moody and dark but building the dread and excitement up with deep doominess. What a start this is.

Abandoned Quarters enhances that sense of mystery with a methodical style of doom, one that gets quiet and low then erupts into thumping heaviness. Ominous Gardens will make the hairs on the back of the neck stand up as melody transforms into dark and worrying doom. Whereas Waterways simply delivers bass filled grumbles and rumbles to send thrills and chills throughout the body.

The journey has reached depths that no man could fathom and Leap of Faith and Deeper Grounds express this with booming doom heaviness. For these explorers, the only way out is to keep going down and the listener is along for the ride. What awaits?

Only the damn Fungal Realm and the horror that is brought to the forefront of the mind. To call this an overwhelming track is to not express just how dangerously enchanting this heavy doom offering is. The more peaceful drops fail to dissipate the sense of impending madness the fungus creates. We all part of it now, we are all one.

In the story, one remains. It is the archaeologist and he and us are about to discover the ancient being that awaits in The Dark Place. Scream if you want, it’s over and the temptation to take the journey again is quite strong.

Cavern Deep – Cavern Deep Full Track Listing:

1. Staring Down
2. Abandoned Quarters
3. Ominous Gardens
4. Waterways
5. Leap of Faith
6. Deeper Grounds
7. Fungal Realm
8. The Dark Place

Links

Website | Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Interstellar Smoke Records