Cave In
Final Transmission

Sometimes the end arrives unexpectedly, suddenly. For Caleb Scofield, bassist of Cave In, the end came on an ordinary March evening last year, while he was driving home to his family. He had been away for a week, busy recording new songs with his band. However, the car lost control, skidded, and crashed. Caleb died instantly at 39, leaving behind a wife and a son. And leaving his fellow musicians orphaned, angry, and bewildered.

End of broadcast. For Cave In, it seemed like everything was over, but time healed the pain and gave them the push they needed to finish the album that had begun when Caleb was still alive. They had to finish it in his honor. They had to close their career with a great tribute to Caleb.
Final Transmission is soaked with pain, but also with great music. Full of that feeling that we have all experienced when we lost someone we loved. Final Transmission is high-level music, full of meaning and emotionally intense.
The album opens with the track that also lends its title to the album: a recording of a melody that Scofield himself had conceived a few days before his death: a sketch of what might have become a great Cave In song, but which instead was used as a memory, as an introduction to the album dedicated to his memory.
The album, besides being a tribute to a friend, is also a courageous return to past glories. The metal glory that made Cave In masters of this genre. In the nine tracks that form Final Transmission, you can hear the groove of Stephen Brodsky (the band's soul and leader of Mutoid Man, and recently a companion of adventures with the splendid Marissa Nadler), you can hear the metal soul that has always been part of the band, you can hear stoner and blues reminiscences that slow down the sound making it heartily dense.
Epic and dramatic is "All Illusion," reminiscent of the muscular ballads of Planes Mistaken For Stars, with Brodsky showcasing a subdued singing, with an intimate and incisive tone. In the following "Shake My Blood," the sound is thrilling and slow hard-rock, with the flow of a blues ballad full of sentiment.
"Night Crawler" and "Winter Window" are two of the songs I loved the most from the album. Both have the unmistakable stoner style of Queens Of The Stone Age, influenced in turn by the recent albums of Mutoid Man (Brodsky's other band).
Final Transmission boasts the best sound of Cave In. A turnaround that brings them back to the powerful style that made them masters of heavy and thoughtful music. Not only a great tribute to Caleb Scofield and a great farewell to the scenes (or so it seems), but also and above all, a great album. Music of undeniable quality, where passion and technique go hand in hand creating extraordinary harmony.

The track that closes the album, "Led To The Wolves," was entirely written by Scofield. Both the lyrics and the guitar riffs belong to him, sprung from his splendid mind of the enormous musician he was. Although it is the most post-hardcore track on the entire album, the most frenzied and violent, it is also the piece that moves the most.

End of transmission. In twenty years, Cave In has written a piece of metal and hardcore music history, and now it closes the curtain with their most honest and sincere album, the most heart-wrenching and intense of their entire career. Final Transmission is beautiful, tugs at the heart, makes you cry, and boasts an amazing sound. Brodsky & Co. have decided to reunite one last time, completing the work already started with their friend and companion Caleb Scofield: an act of courage worthy of a listen. And who knows, maybe for Cave In it is not truly the end of the transmissions, but a new restart to be united and even stronger than before.