Cache Creek- A Band Built on Talent and Friendship.
By Keir Nicoll
Cache Creek are a band producing a sound, brought from the old-South, redolent of the vibrations of the 70s hard rock and heavy metal genres. They have a solid, old-meets-new-school-bearing and their sound is reflective of hours listening to and playing the songs of their forebears. They have the energy and what sounds like the bonafide rock-n-roll credentials behind them – it comes forward in their especially edgy performance-style, brought through in distorted, riffing guitars and their singers howling vocals. Talent and friendship drive this band, as well as the urge and or desire to tell a story. They have diverse interests that come together for notoriously electrifying performances. They naturally explode with an infectious sense of reckless abandon. Their music is fun, wild and free; best suited for the trip down a long dusty road, metaphorically and figuratively. They are unique and vintage, as any heavy-hard-rock band from the lower mainland and Vancouver wants to be.
The first song on the album, “The Man”, is about the high-rollin' gangster lifestyle, with cars and women. A big-man, with money in his briefcase hijinks, the lyrics go, “Hey man, born ready and rocksteady.” It's a complex look at a man, driven to perform illegal activities, for the notoriety and glory involved. Still, “the shit's gonna hit the fan.” There is adept, tentatively bluesy soloing in this song.
The next song, “Rebel Never Dies,” more compelling on the metaphorical level, about a fallen angel, though with the song narrator’s voice's perception, when he looks in the narrator's eyes, the narrator says “when he took his shots, I saw the devil in his eyes.” The confluence of the high and low in literature and art (the heaven-and-hell theme). There is more epic guitar-soloing, in this song, with the guitarist really going off.
“The Reaper,” brings in the middle part of the album. Never fearing the dark subjects of matter and consequence, Cache Creek enter into more of a-rollin’ and tumblin' feel of the rock rollin' on, here, with a descent in the madness of obsessive thoughts on death. “A $100 bill/the suicide pill.” The misery and confusion of drug-use and abuse. “The Reaper swing's his scythe/takes another life.” The futility of existence and reality, especially in a junkie's-world. It's more swinging, in this song, somehow.
Heading toward the end, “I Think I Do Believe” is a selection of more grinding chords, in here, with rhythmic singing in the good tradition of Anthony Kiedis styled, newer rock-n-roll. In this song, the main lyrics seem to be an account of the band members and the crowd being loaded and then that, leading to partying in the streets. Again, bringing themes from the great rock-n-roll tradition. “What it comes down to is never stopping playing rock-n-roll!”
Rounding out the album, “Trainline,” is about the shades, of hope and desire, for one's loved-one and the feelings of success and failure in reaching these things. There is a slow bass-line intro, with chords, then echoing guitar refrains come chiming in. One of the timeless songs about “the sun not shining when you ain't here/the rain pour[ing] when you're not around.” More of a bluesy-patch kind of chording, in this song. At one point, there is a very fast, riffy, Stevie-Ray Vaughan solo here, over the slower song, which is a very excellent contrast. The singer's refrains call our attention to his walking, along the train line, fearing his destiny will never be met, yet still imagining the time he can be in his baby's arms, as he belts out his hope.
All-in-all, this is a pretty hard-rocking' album and the band's reflections and fixations on the darker subjects of our society, calls into the question, the legitimacy of these claims of lifestyles, that emerge, from the other side of reality. Sorrow, hope, loss, glory, fame – all these feelings are broached here, as the band emerges from the shadows of lives-lived, with a morbid fascination. They bring a message of love and understanding of the poetry of darkness and its breath through us.
Listen to the EP Here