Cavity - "Supercollider", 1999

"Supercollider" is generally the most revered Cavity record; it's certainly the band's most well-known. It actually was the first Cavity effort that I listened to, since everybody in the scene was raving about it, and it also was the easiest to find on CD back in the day. I'm not sure how much being released on Frank Kozik's Man's Ruin Records helped the reputation of the album; it certainly gave it a push, though, and the band's relentless touring - as well as putting out a myriad of releases - probably started to pay back around that time in terms of popularity. This said, I'm not really sure that "Supercollider" is actually the best Cavity record; it's probably the most accessible, but I think the best phase of the band was between 1995 and 1998, with "Laid Insignificant" being the pinnacle of the band's creativity. 

One of my main gripes about the record is that, at the time, original singer Rene Barge was temporarily out of the band, with guitarist Anthony Vialon subsequently taking care of the vocals. While doing a decent job at imitating Barge's style, Vialon doesn't convey the same frantic, tortured feeling of the former singer, and the presence of vocals is rather limited over the course of the album. Musically, "Supercollider" seems to leave behind the more chaotic, unpredictable nature of "Laid Insignificant" to focus on more basic sludge/stoner riffs, without many dynamics or twists; maybe the constant changing of drummers didn't help the band's consistency, and the more straightforward style of Henry Wilson feels very different from the schizoid, agile one of Betty Monteavaro, although - to be fair - she was just a session on "Laid Insignificant". 

The songs move along familiar Black Sabbath-inspired riffs, and the ghost of Eyehategod reappears pretty often; some of the riffs could also be compared to Iron Monkey, especially on songs like the closer "Almost Blue", "Set in Cinders", "Damaged IV", or "Last of the Final Goodbyes", which are among the best on the record. In general, it seems like the album works best when the band tries to keep things varied by switching to more lively tempos; elsewhere, the doom and gloom prevails, with monolithic songs such as the title track or the über-heavy, feedback-ridden "How Much Lost", the latter sounding even more detuned than the rest of the material; a couple of moodier instrumentals round out the tracklist but don't add much to the album. 

The production by Jeremy Du Bois doesn't disrupt the band's tradition, keeping things stripped down and as live-sounding as possible, while adding a slightly more polished finish and more noticeable low-end frequencies than usual; it makes for a raw but perfectly balanced audio quality.

The artwork by Kozik looks weird enough, although I must say I've never been much of a fan of the aesthetics he chose for many of the Man's Ruin releases; you often couldn't tell what music to expect by looking at the covers, and the use of generic or outright questionable fonts for the logos and titles didn't help either. "Supercollider"'s artwork actually isn't among the worst by the label, though, and the alternative one on the Hydra Head reissue wasn't much better, to be fair. Cavity was never known for having great-looking covers, though, except maybe for the Pushead one on "Laid Insignificant". 

"Supercollider" is a good record, make no mistake; it's massive, groovy, well-played, and has a good flow. The band certainly didn't sell out, even if it smoothed the edges a little, but the album is just a tad predictable, fitting comfortably within the typical sludge/stoner template of the time and therefore lacking a bit in terms of experimentation or all-out ferocity.