BitterJalapeno Although originally released in 1999, this review has been written based on the 2002 reissue.

As one would expect from a sludge recording, thick and meaty blues influenced riffs are very abundant and continually assault the listener with very little respite – no complaints from me of such assault as I am a bit of a masochist for being abusively flattened the heaviest of riffs as I imagine many others are. Another common sludge trait consistent with this release is the almost constant use of ear piercing guitar feedback.

Although sludge by definition is influenced by punk, I feel this album showcases a more punk tinged sound than most other sludge I am familiar with. For example, the vocals in the first track remind me of a more violent version of Bruce Loose from massively influential San Francisco punk outfit Flipper before becoming much rougher and harsher for much of the remainder of the album. A further example of this would be the average track length which is much shorter than most metal tracks with only 4 of the 11 tracks breaking the 4 minute mark and 5 tracks not reaching 3 minutes.

Elements of Stoner rock/metal are also exhibited in a few moments such as “Taint and Abandon” which features the same riff throughout and after opening with nice calm stonerish vibes, suddenly blasts everyone listening with a sludge soaked version of the same riff. Other tracks such as “Threshold” and “How Much Lost” conjurer up delightful memories of the stoner metal/desert rock of Kyuss which I now realise I must refresh myself with as a matter of urgency.

Overall, I would say this an essential riff-fest of an album for anyone who enjoys getting down and dirty with a bit of sludge or for anyone who simply enjoys mega powerful riffage in any format.

4.5/5

666sharon666 Metal Music Archives Reviewer's Challenge: Album selected by aglasshouse.

With some albums you only need to take a glance at its artwork or the artist's logo to make a reasonable guess about what sort of music it is. With albums like Supercollider, the third album by American metal band Cavity, I'd have guessed wrong if I hadn't already been told. You can no more judge an album by its cover than you can a book. I'd have guessed at something in the post-grunge line looking at either the original cover or the 2002 reissue over, but I'd have been dead wrong. But then who could have guessed that this rather unassuming and (in my view) interesting style of cover would be hiding some heavy, semi-doomy, sludge metal?

The 2002 version of this album also brought some changes to its tracklist, adding in two extra ones, Xtoone and ...Who Doesn't Even Know Yet? For some reason the original final song of the album, Almost Blue, was removed in this edition of the album. It's this version of the album that I have listened to. The album has however had another reissue, this time on vinyl, in April 2017 which restores the original 1999 tracklist.

Cavity aren't a band who mess about with their song-writing. Their main focus is heavy, fuzzy riffs. Vocals play a prominent role as well, but their do seem secondary to the guitars. They aren't a showy band though; there isn't any lead guitar to speak of in their music and their writing style tends towards a short track duration. Tracks two (Set in Cinders) through six (Threshold), don't even hit three minutes. Just heavy riffs, with the occasional added bit of full-on doom slowness. I'd also say it has a few stoner metal moments, a genre that some of the band's other albums seem to be more heavily associated with. Here it's just flavour though, like with the doom metal. Supercollider is otherwise a straightforward sludge metal record, out to do one simple job: make those riffs as heavy as possible.

I think they do a pretty decent job at that, but with that said, if you're listening to albums looking for a lot of variation then you won't find too much of it here. As I said before, Cavity aren't a flashy band, so the closest thing you'll get a change of pace with is probably Inside my Spine where the vocals are harsher and more traditional growling rather than the hardcore shouts and raw singing used elsewhere. Xtoone's style also stands out as a bit different but as I said before, this song doesn't exist on the original 1999 version of the album and my honest opinion is that its rather throwaway, so it beats me why the 2002 version added it.

Cavity don't play a style of music I listen to very often but as far as my taste in sludge metal goes they certainly display a raw kind of charm that as a metal fan I find difficult not to smile about. 4 stars.