Cave

What could have easily downgraded to a damp downpour of psychedelic jamming has instead sped up into a whirlwind flinging unmoored tar shacks and swallowing handfuls of drugs and the musical influences that cross its path. I'm referring to Cave, an instrumental quintet from Chicago via Missouri that are skilled enough to MC your next total freak-out. Following on the heels of the 2008 double EP, Hunt Like Devil/JAMZ on Permanent Records, Psychic Psummer ditches the speed metal guitar licks and cuts back on the bong hits, choosing the power of the Moog instead. "Gamm" opens with straight-ahead space rock that cements their Hawkwind/Iron Butterfly cred. Fortunately the salutation to Andromeda eventually peters out and "Made in Malaysia" revs up a spastic keyboard/bass pulse and tribal chant that suggests dehydration and methamphetamine abuse. The kit bag never closes there after and Cave pulls out Krautrock, Comets on Fire, Sabbath, Spaceman 3 and all manner of riffage great and small. What's that smell?