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The Webernets

DEFENDING CAVE IN’S “SELL OUT” RECORD ANTENNA

 Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 at 11:30am by

Cave In - Antenna

I’ve read enough “Cry Now, Cry Later” columns in Decibel to know that if J. Bennett and I ever met we’d be instant besties, or more likely I’d wanna be instant besties and he’d be all “psshhh… get off my nuts, lowly blogger.” Dude’s writing makes me jealous on a regular basis, and he’s got great taste in metal too. His latest pièce de résistance is an entry in The Deciblog‘s “Justify Your Shitty Taste” series, in which DB writers are challenged to defend formerly indefensible and widely loathed albums: today’s mission, Cave In’s only major label child, Antenna.

For the most part I agree with Bennett that Antenna was, in fact, pretty sweet. His main point is that Antenna is basically Jupiter Part 2, so with Jupiter being as universally lauded as it is now, why no love for Antenna? I agree that you’d have to be a nincompoop to not see that Antenna was coming after the stylistic change on Jupiter and the appropriately named stop-gap EP Tides of Tomorrow, and I agree that Antenna has some pretty sweet jams. But the key word is “some;” while a few songs are big winners in the same space-rock vein as those on Jupiter, some of them are completely forgettable resulting in an album that drags on at times. Still, Antenna doesn’t deserve to be the target of such viscous ire. Moshing dude-bros just got extra butt-hurt that the sea change in the band’s sound ushered in with Jupiter was there to stay (which, ironically, ended up not being the case with the band’s post-Antenna output).

Read J. Bennett’s “Justify Your Shitty Taste” column over at Decibel, then get to arguing. Which Cave In album is the best???

-VN

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  • kylesaisterrible

    wait, did you actually read the article? the whole thing was about all of the records post-Jupiter, not just Antenna.

  • andy

    “White Noise” is not their greatest, but it ain’t bad. If this is “going mainstream”, they did a hell of a fucking good job.

  • Anonymous

    I am one of the weirdos who thinks that all Cave-In is good. I love the first half of Antenna, the not not as much. And I LOVE Perfect Pitch Black. That being said, I might like Zozobra’s two LPs better than almost any Cave-In…..what am I some sorta GOOF?

  • Matt Sreboth

    i would say this record has some of my favorite Cave In songs, but also some of my least favorite Cave In songs. I still think Pitch Black Perfect is their worst album, but thats the thing with this band, even that record has great songs on it. One of the most inconsistent consistent bands ever.

    • Stu1

      Perfect Pitch Black, to me, is their pinnacle. Really the perfect blend of all the stuff they’d done. That being said, it’s not really an “album,” as much as it’s a collection of demos. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/FlannelBastard Dylan Jones

    Good post, I love Cave In, especially Jupiter, and agree with you!

  • Hebetude_dude

    This is actually my favorite Cave In record. Ironically, two of the three weak songs I skip over ‘Seafrost’ and ‘Lost In The Air’ are also the only ones Brodsky & co still endorse. Fuck the haters, I wish they’d just stop dicking around and make another space rock album.

  • I_was_legend66

    First cave in record I ever got. Inspire and stained silver are imo two of thir best songs.

  • DarkDragon

    First Cave In album I heard so it wasn’t a sellout out to my ears. The no screaming works well because I feel on their other albums the screaming sounds too forced.

  • Farts

    I like their new album, it gets a little more stephen broadsky solo stuff near the later tracks but decent.

  • Fightingmike

    I love most of the record. The production is amazing and the good songs are really good. There isn’t really anything as badass as “Big Riff” or “Trepanning” or anything that I would consider Metal, but that doesn’t make it suck at all. If they had cut a few of the boring tracks, it would have been an awesome record.

  • Djabthrash

    This album is awesome.

    END DEBATE

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Eirik-Kjøs-Usterud/1067091137 Eirik Kjøs Usterud

    Antenna is pretty good, just… a bit bland. Sounds more like Foo Fighters with Pink Floyd influences than Cave In, you know? That said, Seafrost is a flawless masterpiece of a song.

  • Stalusk

    It’s a cool record, only a couple of average songs (but their average songs are light years ahead of most bands). Clearly it stands out from the rest of their discography but it’s great for what it is, a big sounding heavy rock record. Stained Silver is a scorching opener and Seafrost is an awesome prog-style epic. Breath Of Water is another great song.

    You have to give them credit for never making the same album twice.

  • brandonmetal

    jupiter is the only one i listen to

  • Nowak

    Big fan of Antenna right here.

  • big_metal_al

    “stained silver” is such a beast opener.  i remember picking up that cd sampler years and years ago before antenna came out, and it got me pretty stoked.  antenna was good, but i still revisit it as much as any other cave in album for some reason because of that one song.  you also have to keep in mind, i don’t want to call the band “selling out”, but i’m sure the major label had a few things to say on how it HAD to contractually sound.

  • http://twitter.com/thejamminjabber thejamminjabber

    This album has some great songs. No justification needed.