Cold Cave — Love Comes Close

Love Comes Close

Matador/Beggar's Banquet

Brian Pascual (CHARTattack)

11/02/2009 2:59pm

After a slew of hard-to-find, limited number seven-inches on tiny indie labels, Cold Cave's once out-of-print debut Love Comes Close, is mercifully getting reissued so it can get the proper attention it deserves.

The album buries undeniably catchy hooks and melodies beneath blankets of drone-filled electro-noise and distortion, and Cold Cave seem to have an uncanny knack for making cold, austere synth-pop sound affecting and emotional. Case in point: album opener "Cebe And Me," with its minimalist Suicide-esque spook trance complete with a robot-like female vocal that's wholly mesmerizing.

Such is the beauty of this record — on the surface it's a brash and challenging listen, but each track on Love Comes Close draws you in that little bit more. "Life Magazine" is essentially a Karen O-fronted Liars track with an irresistible echo-y vocal trick, "Heaven Was Full" somehow makes The Cure's formula sound even darker, and "Youth And Lust" takes cues from M83's last record by bringing shoegaze music to the dance floor.

The album's jewel, however, is the title track, boasting an arresting exorcism of Ian Curtis' ghost on vocals overtop a gorgeous keyboard line, driving electro-beat and classic New Order guitar riff repeated over and over that sounds as good as it should be.

There should be no excuse for missing out on this band now with this reissue. So don't.