Cold Cave - Love Comes Close

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5...according to our Brian on Thu 29 Oct, 2009.

Cold Wave electro prodigies Cold Cave aka Wesley Eisold (& friends) has his debut LP proper 'Love Comes Close' fully released on Matador this week. I heard a 7" single on Hospital months back and just adored the dark, blurred lo-fi fog obscuring these darkly emotive electro pop gems. Once again the "Dutch" sound of 1982 is relevant & fresh again. Cold Cave's songs owe as much to the bleak beauty of Factory records as they do the sad analogue chords of Trumpett records of Holland (check out Eurolegends such as The Actor & Ende Shneafliet), music that is both beautifully evocative and icily nihilistic. The early New Order influence is inescapable on the title track, but doesn't seem typical of much of the album. There's quite a varied palette of electronic sounds used throughout, the template is really diverse, ranging from the nonchalant, detached synth fuzz of 'Life Magazine' with its echoed female vocal & looming bassline to the crisp, classic electro of 'The Laurels of Erotomania' - all cascading synths, pristine 4/4 beat & sulky, maudlin vocals. God, this guy knows how to write a tune! He's a bit of a goth too but I've always thought that this much maligned genre harboured some cracking, underappreciated songs. 'Heaven Was Full' is Interpol meets Depeche Mode skating sexily along on Kate Bush's mid 80's drums...... I can really see what the fuss is about now, nothing hugely new but there's some quality ideas fused together here to create a fresh dynamic take on simple old ingredients. Excellent stuff!!!

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• The warm, rich synth pop sounds on ‘Love Comes Close’,
the debut full length from Philly / New York quartet Cold
Cave, are laced with equal measures of romance and nihilism.
Somewhere in these realms of negative hiss and out-of-body
bliss, there is a peak awaiting all who enter. Singer /
keyboardist / songwriter Wesley Eisold is joined by Caralee
McElroy (ex-Xiu Xiu), Dominick Fernow (Prurient) and
Sarah Lipstate (ex-Parts & Labor, Noveller). Eisold
himself served time with hardcore punk legends American
Nightmare / Give Up The Ghost and Some Girls.
• Cold Cave are possibly the only band ever to have been
compared to both Erasure and Whitehouse. We might also
add ‘Temptation’-era New Order.
• The album’s first pressing of 2000 copies on Heartworm sold
out instantly on release.
• Available on CD and LP. The vinyl format contains an MP3
coupon for the entire album plus three bonus songs:
‘Double Lives In Single Beds’, ‘Theme From
Tomorrowland’ and ‘Town Crier’.
• “The songs are danceable, dark, instantly infectious” –
Stereogum; “… an unmistakable pop bubble bursting bar
after bar” – Fader; “Band Of The Day” – The Guardian.

Cebe And Me * Love Comes Close * Life Magazine * The
Laurels Of Erotomania * Heaven Was Full * The Trees
Grew Emotions And Died * Hello Rats * Youth And Lust *
I.C.D.K.