ALBUM REVIEW: The Truth Is Caustic To Love – Spider Kitten
UK extreme metal label APF Records specialises in confounding its listeners. One minute they’re putting out some of the most disgusting, grimy, sludgy death and doom metal you’ve ever heard (MASTIFF, SWAMP COFFIN), the next they’re surprising you with the complex brutality of URZAH or the groovy heavy psych of BARBARIAN HERMIT. Predictable they most certainly ain’t and label head honcho Andrew Field is very much to thank/blame for that. Sometimes, though, even the most unpredictable label can throw in a curveball. Enter stage left(field), SPIDER KITTEN.
Having formed in South Wales in 2001, it’s safe to say the trio have hardly been resting on their laurels being as new album The Truth Is Caustic To Love is something like their thirty-fifth release (this does include EPs, splits and live recordings but – even so – that’s a lot of music.) Listen to every single one of those, though, and you might still struggle to get a handle on the band’s sound. In fact, with SPIDER KITTEN, that seems to be the whole point, as album opener 13 On 6 instantly makes clear. Its first two minutes of sinister, bluesy doom might not be entirely unexpected but then we get a middle-eight which seems to entirely consist of a cymbal solo – because apparently that’s a thing – from drummer Chris West – before the rest of the band comes back in for the final minute of crushing riffs and layered vocals.
The Dose is two minutes of slow, stoner grooves which showcases guitarist and vocalist Chi Lameo’s excellent lead work until resolving into a super-massive DOWN-esque riff which is gone before you know it. Third track Sueno is a Western-inspired instrumental that sounds like it was recorded by Sergio Leone but if he recorded all of his songs in a distant galaxy. The Spoiler is just over a minute and comes across like an all-too-brief tribute to ALICE IN CHAINS, off-kilter harmonies and crunching scuzzy riffs included, although these do make a welcome return on the second half of the album. Four tracks in and it’s impossible to tell where this is going and, while that’s certainly a lot of fun, the eclectic nature of this opening quartet (and, actually, everything that follows) might be enough to put off those listeners who prefer their albums easily pigeon-holed.
Three Shots is another cinematic, Western-inspired piece, this time giving Lameo’s vocals a chance to shine and, clocking in at nearly three minutes, it’s perhaps the most conventionally recognisable song that has appeared so far. It is followed by the sinister, doomy, six-minute slow-build of Revelation #1, a track which creates minimalist layers of anticipation before it opens out into a crushingly satisfying final two minutes and you can’t help but wish that maybe there was a bit more of this elsewhere on the album, even though that just isn’t the way that SPIDER KITTEN do things. This attitude is summed up by the cover of Randy Newman’s country music classic Guilty which closes the album out, sounding like nothing else that has gone before it, Lameo’s emotional vocal delivery providing another highlight.
Like MELVINS, SPIDER KITTEN is a band that is always experimenting, always confounding and always pushing the boundaries and one could argue this is sometimes to their detriment especially if you are someone that looks for consistency in their music. The Truth Is Caustic To Love is certainly worth a try for fans of genre-defying, heavy weirdness even if it might leave everyone else scratching their heads.
Rating: 6/10
The Truth Is Caustic To Love is out now via APF Records.
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