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Salt Lake City's Newer-Wave titan Cavedoll (MySpace) has got to be the most prolific band I've ever heard of. No, really. Last year, they released thirteen albums. Thirteen. In one year. This year, they have ten albums planned, with No Vertigo being the latest addition to the ranks. Hell, for $29.95, though, you can even score a DVD of their entire musical catalogue in high-quality mp3 format. Sounds intimidating, doesn't it? I mean...they've put out more music in two years than most artists produce in a lifetime! Where the hell do you start?
In addition to being their most recent release, No Vertigo also serves as an excellent introduction to the band in that it accurately represents their entire broad range. Opening with lead single "Decoder," which National Public Radio has described as "infectious and explosive," No Vertigo explores elements of New Wave, indie-rock, brit-pop, glam, dream-pop, synthpop, and twenty or thirty other forms of *-pop while remaining remarkably focused. Led by vocalists Camden and Vanessa Chamberlain, backed up by Janet Marie and Ryan Peterson's punchy percussion and Allison Martin's assorted synths, Cavedoll is a Waring blender that frappés damnear every style of music that helped define the sound of the '80s post-punk underground and pours out a smooth, tasty concoction of avant-garde pop that will light up old New Wavers' hearts without sounding slavishly retro.
"No Vertigo" is a great single with a buzzy bassline and a dancefloor beat that will be familiar to fans of bands like De Novo Dahl and Infadels, but "Kings of the Clouds" and "Broken Eardrums" are bouncy numbers with such a pronounced brit-pop flavor that I really thought the band was British. "Taste Like a Hurricane" and "The Shadow," with their glitzy synth leads and rocking guitars, could very well be lost singles from The Killers--save that Camden Chamberlain has a much better voice than Brandon Flowers. "Soma E Coup" is a dark, electric jam that mixes a touch of the B-52s (the loopy female backing vocals) with a spooky little Middle Eastern melody, and "Now is Our Time" literally resurrects "the Beatles sound" so accurately you can practically see George Martin at the mixing board building the track's Wall of Sound.
The album also features two bonus tracks: covers of the Rolling Stones' seminal "Paint It Black" and David Bowie's "Heroes." Now, if I've heard one cover of "Paint It Black" and "Heroes" I've heard a million--but Cavedoll achieves an impressive feat by giving these covers a recognizable individual slant. The songs' melodies are both recognizable, but the orchestrations are all Cavedoll's own. In fact, you may be thinking that, based on the massive amounts of comparisons above, that Cavedoll's music is nothing more than a Frankensteinian mishmash of sounds and influences without a particular personal sound that makes them more than the sum of their parts. This is very far from the truth, as no matter how disparate the band's influences are they manage to blend all those different flavors of music together into a unique philtre that is entirely their own. In other words, you'll know a Cavedoll song when you hear it. And god knows, having produced over 170 songs in just under two years, there are plenty of them!
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