Review Summary: Cavalcade is the sound of a talented band consciously pushing themselves as far as they can go in terms of musicianship and song writing.
It might seem strange, but one of the best ways to judge if an album is truly exceptional (or in this site’s wording ‘superb’) is to look at the songs that aren’t on it. What I mean by that is this: if the B-sides an artist deems surplus are brilliant, then you can normally expect the album tracks to be as good if not better. The most recent example of this is Frank Turner’s ‘England Keep My Bones’; with the bonus tracks and songs from last year’s taster Rock & Roll EP making up a 19-song package of unrelenting quality.
And from that fairly off-topic introduction I arrive at the album in question, The Flatiners’
Cavalcade. Released over a year ago the dust has been given a chance to settle, with the record ranking high in many punk-focused Best of 2010 lists (including a #4 ranking in the Punknews.org list). If we’re going by the rule above (focusing on the Cynics and Monumental 7-inches) then this album is without doubt one of the best punk records of the last few years.
Cavalcade is the band’s 3rd full length and marks the next step in their evolution from super-fast skacore to straight-up melodic punk. For some reason I really loved the band’s second release The Great Awake; I knew it wasn’t all that special within the genre (or Fat Wreck Chords releases for that matter) but it just seemed to do everything well. With Cavalcade, however, the band have stepped up their game considerably, to the point where they’re now doing everything better than most other bands.
Perhaps it’s best feature, and one that becomes obvious from the first listen through, is the sheer diversity on offer across these tracks. Straight-forward melodic punk songs such as ‘Here Comes Treble’ and first single ‘Carry the Banner’ sit comfortably alongside the more mid-tempo and laid back ‘Monumental’ and ‘Count Your Bruises’. Despite the continuing evolution away from the skacore sound of debut album Destroy to Create, traces can still be found in ‘He Was a Jazzman’- a track that grows steadily from slow reggae to a brutal punk rock conclusion. The aggression and high-tempos on show in songs such as ‘***hawks’ and ‘Filthy Habits’ give the album a great sense of momentum and the 39 minute running time flies by. It’s also on tracks such as these that their improved musicianship really shines- at times sounding like their more technical contemporaries in
Propogandhi or
A Wilhelm Scream- with Chris Cresswell’s vocals also a stand out for their diversity in delivery (you can’t help but scream along to ‘I just can’t listen to sad songs any more, I get ***ing bored’ in ‘Filthy Habits’). In fact the album is so different from one song to the next that it’s difficult to avoid writing some form of track-by-track review in fear of neglecting something completely.
And while all of these songs are brilliant in their own right the real skill comes in forming them into a cohesive whole- a feat achieved thanks to some consistently great production (slick yet with enough rough edges in the right places to satisfy punk purists) and over-arching lyrical themes.
Cavalcade certainly isn’t a concept album or rock opera, but its tracks generally cover life on the road and the idea of there being ‘unity in detachment’- a theme easily relatable to most listener’s experiences.
Cavalcade is the sound of a talented band consciously pushing themselves as far as they can go in terms of musicianship and song writing, and in doing so they have created a record that puts many of punk’s elder statesmen to shame. With another two songs from these sessions set to come out with the ‘Count Your Bruises’ 7 inch, I’m at the stage where I
expect them to be as excellent as the previous batch- a mighty fine achievement for a band as young as The Flatliners.
