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Cave InHeavy Pendulum

✦✦✦✧ This is the best that Cave In’s ever sounded. The band also feel as energetic and restless as ever. A runtime of 71 minutes is a lot to swallow, but it gives the band enough room to stretch out and entertain their various shadow selves. Listen for hints of Clutch, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, plus (and knowing the Katamari-like propensity of various Converge members to keep cross-pollinating and uplifting each other’s and other bands’ sounds) Mutoid Man, Old Man Gloom, and Quicksand.

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ConvergeBloodmoon: I

✦✦✦✧ This is Converge (with Chelsea Wolfe and Stephen Brodsky) at their most brooding and contemplative. Not sure if that’s what anyone wanted from them, but that’s what they did with their pandemic; how about you? Shit talking aside, I really like this album, but if you think you’re getting “Axe To Fall II” here, you’re going to have a bad time.