Philadelphia synth-darkwave artistes Cold Cave come to Garfield Artworks on February 22 along with Hair Police and Lookbook.  I have two tickets to give away for the show, so the first two lucky souls to email me (bowmanpatrick@ymail.com) with “cold cave tickets” in the subject header get the prizes.

Love Comes Close, the group’s Jan 2010 release, is a dead ringer to soundtrack any one of Bret Easton Ellis’ diatribes on the vapidness of 80′s American opulence, more than ready to fill the fictional corridors of some austere modernist penthouse with razor sharp synth lines, emotionless calculating vocals and enough palpable menace to imply a murder plot. All that blackness is set against genuine moments of gleaming electronic pop, defrosting your heart just enough before the darkness returns. Tracks after the jump.

Love Comes Close may imply the dehumanizing results of modernity from a mixture of influences that  seem dated, but the whole packed feels fresh and revitalized.  Even with lead singer Wes Eisold emulating the late Ian Curtis on the majority of his performances, most evident on album’s title cut, the emotionally naked ennui feels genuine (“Love comes close, but chooses to spare me”). “Life Magazine” is a triumphant piece of IDM, with Caralee McElroy’s vocals (formerly of Xiu Xiu) duplicating as she continues through her verse, giving the feel of radio waves shooting into the cosmos.

All the spacey detachment doesn’t mean Love Comes Close is an album void of substance.In reality, Cold Cave are incredibly self-aware of their favorite themes (damaged emotions, nightmarish sound scapes, vacant decadence) and have their inherent aesthetic nailed.  Let them take you to another place far away from the dead, snowy winter of Pittsburgh in February, if only for a couple hours.

Rest of tour:

2/12 — Calendonia Lounge — Athens, GA
2/13 — Studio B — Greensboro, NC
2/16 — Wasted Space — Las Vegas, NV
2/18 — Echoplex — Los Angeles, CA
2/20 — Haverford College — Haverford, PA
2/21 — Mohawk Place — Buffalo, NY
2/22 — Garfield Artworks — Pittsburgh, PA
2/23 — Grog Shop — Cleveland, OH
2/24 — Crofoot Ballroom — Pontiac, MI
2/25 — Empty Bottle — Chicago, IL
2/26 — Project Lodge — Madison, WI
2/27 — Canopy Club/Club Void — Urbana, IL
2/28 — Al’s Bar — Lexington, KY

Cold Cave – Life Magazine