by Michael Bennett
Daily Lobo
Denver trio Caustic Soul's latest release takes listeners on a turbulent ride through war.
Absence of Warmth is a unique offering and would be hard to lump into a particular musical genre.
Members Mike Atchley, Judas Neiman and David Spethman combine guitar, synthesizer and sampling on Absence. The album can be described as electronic ambience, sounding like a mix between David Bowie and Soundgarden and punctuated with lashings of Pink Floyd-style surrealism.
The album is presented in narrative form. Each song is a monologue from a soldier in World War I. It is an interesting attempt at weaving such a difficult concept into music, especially one not usually associated with contemporary music, but more suited to poetry.
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Although Mike Atchley's vocals are grating at times, originality and innovation carry the album. Atchley, the songwriter, intend to send the listener on an aural journey to a brutal and hopeless, yet important, part of mankind's history.
Themes of the futility of war and its catastrophic effect on those who survive it run through the album. Absence is certainly intriguing as it conjures a situation in the head of the listener in which the only two choices are to either run in front of rampant machine guns or be shot by your own countrymen for failing to take part in the suicide charge.
The tone of the album is almost nihilistic, as if longing for destruction. "Steel Thorns" sounds akin to German band Rammstein, with its militaristic, industrial, driving rock with mellow interludes.
Caustic Soul is definitely not for everyone and is not exactly the type of music to listen to while getting ready for a night out. It's more for chilling out and getting lost in sound.
Overall, Absence of Warmth succeeds in its attempt to transport the listener and present a post-modern musical tapestry of WWI.
Absence of warmth
Caustic Soul
Artist :One Stop
Grade: B-
