ALBUM REVIEW: Caspian – Caspian

Since CASPIAN’s last record, the world has lived through a pandemic, the band have celebrated their 20th anniversary, and their members have scattered across the United States. It has been six years since the post-rock titans released On Circles, not a long time, but enough for a band navigating their third decade to pause and reflect. Theirs has been a career spearheaded by innovating on what came before. But on their self-titled sixth record, that need to always push their boundaries comes second to doing what they do best. Calling it Caspian says a lot: this is who they are. 

So now is a perfect time to come on board. These six tracks, spanning less than 40 minutes, come from the band realising all they need to do is sit in a room together and songs of quality will follow. Bassist Jani Zubkovs put it like this: “It’s not necessarily, ‘if it’s not broken, don’t fix it’. It’s more like, ‘if it’s not broken, maybe it’s good that it’s not broken’.” Caspian is a product of this ethos; it sounds familiar, but comfortingly so. On opener Hiraeth (a Welsh word for the bittersweet longing for a home that can never be returned to) wistful melodies repeat and resolve with satisfaction. CASPIAN can’t literally turn back the years, but they begin the album with a track that sounds like looking back at where they started from. It is, as all their music is, a beautiful piece.

They are even beautiful at their fiercest, which happens here on A Great Fire. With no lyrics, it is up to the listener to prescribe meaning to these compositions, but just try not to smile when the song’s big, fat riff hits after the halfway mark. It is an explosion of sound as pure joy. Picture the band freewheelin’ their way through riffs and ideas in a studio and the moment they realise they’ve stumbled upon a live one. The sheer power of the music is euphoric.

With members now living across Massachusetts, Maine, New York, and Colorado, CASPIAN aren’t able to spend as much time together tweaking and iterating. There were only a few writing sessions before hitting the studio to record the album, but that might be what makes each song a triumph. None of them feel overthought, all of them feel like a band confident in their ability to put together emotive, captivating soundscapes. It’s how the nine-minute Remain passes in what seems like half the time, transitioning with grace from shimmering chords to percussive haymakers. Drummer Justin Forrest beats the tar out of his kit. If you imagine the band working these pieces out in the studio, Forrest is the encouragement to play that loop one more time or turn that amp up loud. He conducts with thunder.

The already initiated know CASPIAN have got the goods. Newcomers are about to find out. But Caspian is about the band realising it too. They have more than 20 years at their backs, writing, playing, touring. It was all in preparation to get out of their own way and just write some damn good music. That’s exactly what Caspian is.

Rating: 8/10

Caspian is set for release on October 16th via Wax Bodega. 

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