Album Review: Cicadastone - Cold Chamber

My colleague D.M has long espoused a theory about music being cyclical, and roughly every twenty-five years things will revert back to where they were. That means right now we should be entering a cycle of nostalgia for the 90s, which in the rock scene means a return of the grunge ethos. I haven't seen a lot of evidence for that just yet, but that's exactly what Cicadastone is aiming for. They are a young band calling back to flannel's finest hour, and possibly rescuing us from the overload of bands that still treat the 80s like they were the greatest time ever. (Spoiler alert; they weren't)

In the case of Cicadastone, there is one influence that can't be ignored; Alice In Chains. Their thick riffing, dark guitar tone, and nasally harmonized vocals are all straight from the Alice In Chains playbook. If not for the modern production, some people could easily be fooled into thinking these could be old demos from that band back in the day. If you love that sound of simple guitar grooves and blended harmonies, Cicadastone is going to scratch that familiar itch.

There's a hint of "Man In The Box" to the riff of "Incandesent", although Cicadastone's song never kicks into that energetic high gear. The band is content to sit in the slower groove, and let the song slowly wash over you. They pull a very specific thread of the past, and they use that to stitch everything they do together. There may not be as much color from song to song, but there is consistency. With that being true, it means this is a record you can put on and listen through without worrying about hearing one or two tracks that sound out of place, that you would rather not hear. Cicadastone is committed to their sound, through and through.

There is something to be said for knowing who you are, which Cicadastone surely does.

There are two problems with this record, however. First among them is that with thirteen tracks, many of them going over five minutes long, there's a bit too much here. What could have been a tight forty-five minute record stretches on and gets a bit tiring before the end. With these tempos, and the droning nature of the music, asking for an hour of our attention might be asking more than some of us can give. Even though I like the record, I find myself being tested to get through the entire thing every time. Secondly, I think we could reconsider the song "Slave In A Cage". Using that word in any context other than historical is asking for trouble. I'm not accusing the song of anything, but it would be easier not to use said language, and avoid any misunderstandings before they occur.

The main takeaway is this; those of us who grew up with the 90s being the foundation of our memories are going to welcome the nostalgia this sound evokes. Sure, Alice In Chains is still around and making music, but we don't get to hear enough other groups that remember the 90s were a better time than we like to give it credit for. I'll take a dozen more bands trying to be the next Nirvana or Alice In Chains before I hear one more who wants to be Def Leppard. There's something soothing about hearing music from a previous depressing time in our society right now. It reminds us that we got through it before, we'll get through it again, and we aren't crazy for holding onto the music from back then.

So yeah, good on you, Cicadastone.