You can’t go wrong with Cave In. Since forming in Methuen, Massachusetts, in 1995, the dynamic four-piece have put out seven albums of unpredictable hard rock sophistication. They started as part of the same metalcore scene as Converge, then diverted into immense prog, alt-rock, sludge, thrash and more, with no two releases ever feeling the same.
Such constant genre-hopping hasn’t been good to Cave In’s wallets over the years, but it’s also made them one of the most consistently incredible cult bands of their generation. To celebrate these explorers’ spotless discography, Metal Hammer’s revisited their every studio album, then ranked them from the good to the untouchable.
7. Final Transmission (2019)
Cave In don’t consider Final Transmission a studio album. Rather, it’s a collection of demos the band were hoping would evolve into something more refined, but that process was shattered by longtime bassist Caleb Scofield dying in a truck accident in 2018. His cohorts released what they had in tribute, and the nine alt-metal songs still overflow with excellence despite going unfinished. From the dulcet, acoustic title track to the shoegaze-like shimmer of Lunar Day and Night Crawler’s hammering riffs, Cave In’s genius remained, even through the darkness of personal tragedy.
6. Until Your Heart Stops (1998)
Although Cave In downplay their debut album as merely “Converge worship”, Until Your Heart Stops is an unsung classic of progressive metalcore. In fact, it may be the first progressive metalcore album. What ’core band before this had the balls to blast out eight-minute rippers like The End Of Our Rope Is A Noose? While there may be some derivative riffing and overreaching here and there (no one needs three minutes of ambient noise to close the title track), Until Your Heart Stops was one of the first truly intelligent-feeling moments in its genre.
5. Antenna (2003)
In the early 2000s, nu metal was fading and major labels needed to inspire the next big trend in heavy music. Many pulled from the then-burgeoning metalcore and post-hardcore scenes, resulting in Cave In inking a massive deal with RCA. Antenna tempered their snarling attack even more than predecessor Jupiter had, resulting in hyper-polished pop-rock bangers like Anchor and Inspire. Although the big commercial gambit bombed, these songs still hold up, as does the Radiohead-esque melancholy of Youth Overrided and the adventurous scope of nine-minute centrepiece Seafrost.
4. Perfect Pitch Black (2005)
After the alt-rock of Antenna commercially sank, Cave In were creatively stifled and RCA weren’t making money from them. The two agreed to part ways, with the band returning to both their original label, Hydra Head, and their heavier roots for Perfect Pitch Black. The album was no mere retread of Cave In’s metalcore days, though, instead casting the accessible sensibilities of their recent material against bold blasts of sludge. Supplying gravelly melodies and savage riffing in equal measure, Perfect… is an exciting onslaught that never lets up.
3. Heavy Pendulum (2022)
For their first album without Caleb Scofield, Cave In sought solace in old friends: the band got Converge’s Nate Newton on bass and recorded in Kurt Ballou’s God City Studios, which they hadn’t used since their debut album. The resulting music was some of their most confident-sounding ever. Over a bold 70 minutes, Cave In present 14 cathartic metal anthems, many of which add extra emotional weight by memorialising Scofield, either lyrically or by using his tunings. Prog/thrash finale Wavering Angel epitomises the crushingly heavy yet evocative depths that Heavy Pendulum reaches.
2. White Silence (2011)
By 2011, most Cave In fans were accustomed to the band reinventing themselves between releases. On White Silence, the band reinvented themselves over the space of 35 minutes. Although the title track opens the album in a barrage of discordant noise, things only grow smoother from there: Serpents and Sing My Loves present more palatable yet still-brutal metalcore, before Summit Fever dabbles in melodic alt-metal and, eventually, Iron Decibels and Reanimation combine for an all-acoustic finale. As a whistlestop display of everything Cave In can do, this hasn’t been topped.
1. Jupiter (2000)
As a business move, Jupiter was a terrible idea. Cave In were underground metalcore beloveds after Until Your Heart Stops, and just two years later they were darting into proggy, cosmic rock? Not the soundest strategy on paper – however, in practice, the band’s second album is glorious.
Jupiter just exudes tastefulness. It’s heavy as fuck, as exemplified by its standout song being called Big Riff and smacking you into a wall of distortion, or when Requiem builds itself up to a cascade of chords. Simultaneously though, there’s so much melody intertwined throughout, laced with emo sentimentality and production so vast as to be worthy of that space-obsessed cover.
Several reviews deeming Cave In the heavy metal Radiohead followed this release, and they were well earned. 23 years since Jupiter came out, no band has sounded huge, heavy and angsty in quite this way – not even this one. Their place as one of the best and most underrated forces in rock was secured here and, sadly, much of the world still hasn’t caught on.
