COI009: "I no longer know," she said, "the way to fly myself home"
May it all become familiar to us all
I’ve been listening to Cave In’s new album, Final Transmission, pretty much nonstop since it was released one week ago on Hydra Head. This is a big deal for me, as my general listening habits these days consist primarily of sports talk radio, pro wrestling podcasts and whatever songs I overhear at Sheetz. Depending on where you drop the needle, the album is melodic and spacey like Jupiter, riffy and groove-driven like Perfect Pitch Black, or downright metal like White Silence. It fits comfortably into Cave In’s unique catalog, where no two albums sound quite the same but they all sound like different branches of the same gnarled tree.
While it has not been explicitly stated as such, Final Transmission is surely Cave In’s last album, due to their bassist, the immensely talented Caleb Scofield, passing away in a fiery car crash in March 2018. According to authorities, Scofield was driving on a New Hampshire highway and approached a toll plaza too fast. He tried to change lanes at the last second but instead collided with the tollbooth’s concrete barrier, crumpling his silver pickup truck and sending it tumbling down the highway, where it burst into flames. Passerby rushed to his aid with fire extinguishers and tried to rescue him, but it was too late. The impact was too intense, the fire was too powerful, the damage was too severe. Caleb Scofield died.
Just a few weeks earlier, Scofield had re-convened with the other members of Cave In — vocalist/guitarist Stephen Brodsky, guitarist Adam McGrath and drummer JR Conners — in Allston, Massachusetts, to demo new material with the hopes of a new record in the future. Cave In’s previous album, White Silence, was released seven years prior, in 2011. In the intervening years, the members ended up playing in a variety of other groups — Brodsky fronted hard-rock revivalists Mutoid Man and continued to release experimental solo material; McGrath and Conners started a punk band called Nomad Stones; McGrath also dabbled in electro-reggae with his solo project King Duane Sunnapee; Scofield continued to explore new avenues of heaviness with Old Man Gloom. Scofield even recruited McGrath and Conners to help him make a new Zozobra EP in 2013 called Savage Masters. Unsurprisingly, it ruled. But there was always hope for a new Cave In album. Separately, these four men were powerful, but together, they were unstoppable.
Final Transmission, released 15 months after Scofield’s passing, is nine songs and 31 minutes long. It opens with the title track, a two-minute acoustic sketch of an idea, featuring “dun dun duns” where lyrics would go. It is the complete opposite of every opening track in Cave In’s two-decade history. It was never intended for release. Really, nothing on Final Transmission was. But it truly was Scofield’s final transmission.
Scofield recorded that song the same day he got home from Cave In’s demo session in Allston. He took US-3 north out of Boston, getting on the F.E. Everett Turnpike once he crossed the state line into New Hampshire. He returned to his home in Bow, a short drive northwest of Manchester. He likely had the chord progression playing through his head for the duration of the 90-minute drive, and he had to get it out and share it with his bandmates. So Scofield sat down, acoustic guitar in hand, and hit record on his cellphone. Two minutes later, he had a voice memo that was serviceable enough to share with his bandmates. It was the last musical idea he’d ever share with them. Five-and-a-half weeks later, that same stretch of highway killed Caleb Scofield.
The final song on Final Transmission, “Led To The Wolves,” pre-dates Cave In’s previous album, White Silence. It was demoed out in October 2010 in Allston in hopes of making that record, but was pushed to the back burner in favor of other material. It’s loud, noisy and chaotic, and it was primarily written by Scofield. The song swirls around in 7/4 time, anchored by the brilliant rhythm section of Scofield and Conners, as Brodsky and McGrath’s guitars slash and burn everything they touch. It builds and builds for three straight minutes, then comes to a sudden, violent, unexpected conclusion. Then, nothing.
This album wasn’t supposed to end this way.
Scofield wasn’t supposed to end this way.
The photo at the top of this newsletter was taken on December 3, 2017, the same day Cave In recorded “Lanterna” and “Strange Reflection,” the first two songs the band decided were worthy of being demoed for an eventual new album. The songs serve as a lyrical yin yang, with Brodsky singing about “endless light” and “surrender[ing] to the sun” in the former and a “trap door open” in a “room descending” that leads to a “gift of horror” and a “dance of dead souls” in the latter. Brodsky has always incorporated vague spiritual themes throughout his lyrics, but this was as direct a heaven/hell comparison as he’d ever gotten.
“Strange Reflection” features one line that will really stick with me, though: “I found heaven in a haunted ballroom.” No matter how tortured anyone may feel at any given moment, there is no better feeling than the euphoria of seeing music played live surrounded by people who are there feeling the same thing. Scofield understood this. Scofield lived for this. Scofield died for this. But his euphoria will live on.
Today’s subject line is a lyric from the song “New Moon” by Cave In, the final track on their 2000 masterpiece Jupiter. Listen to the song below, and if you dig it, you can buy the record it’s from on Amazon (and by clicking that link, there’s a chance I may make a few cents):
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