Cave Painting - Votive Life

Anybody who doesn’t think 2012 has been good for music needs to take a good, long look at the wealth of excellent debut albums it’s seen. Included on that list should be Cave Painting’s ‘Votive Life’, an exceptional piece of atmospheric alt-pop.

Previous free download ‘Leaf’ kicks off proceedings, and whilst it eases you into ‘Votive Life’ it’s quickly replaced by ‘Gator’, which is laid back, with its tropical sounds (courtesy of an African marimba), but sharpens up as singer Adam Kane takes centre-stage amid shouts, and very little instruments. It’s all very well put together.

Anything that dabbles even slightly in synth runs the risk of sounding same-y. Cave Painting manage to sidestep this problem deftly, creating an album that flows well but isn’t something you forget you’re listening to. Even the slow, heavy traipse of ‘Only Us’ doesn’t lull you into a daze – especially when its guitar really get going. Comparatively, the also slow ‘Pair Up’ feels soft in parts, despite the heavy percussion. It’s a careful balance, and the Brighton boys pull it off.

A running theme, if you hadn’t noticed from the last two titles mentioned, is romance and love. Kane’s swooning vocals and soaring “oohs” make for a lush soundscape that suits the topics; except for when they start going on about death, then the juxtaposition is just a little strange. But that’s part of the band’s style too – just look at the videos for ‘Gator’ and most recent single and album highlight ‘So Calm’, in contrast to their tropical pop leanings.

‘Rio’ is a gem of a track towards the end of ‘Votive Life’. Again, Kane’s vocals are well-used and everything is timed brilliantly. It’s the kind of sound an act who’d been around for much longer might struggle to create, and yet here’s a band on their debut album, a band who were signed on only their second live show, creating a wonderful sound on their first go. There’s something almost anthemic about the guitars in ‘Rio’, and it’s masterful. And then you’ve got the almost-instrumental ‘Me You Soon’, a song which evokes a delicacy unrivalled by anything else on the album.

At the risk of sounding too full of praise for ‘Votive Life’, it is a genuinely brilliant debut. What we’ll have to wait and see is whether it’ll survive the hype machine, and be followed up by a genuinely fantastic second album.