Maybe I'm just not getting the right promos. Last week I reviewed Snailbones, and now here's Cadaverette. I'm a few months late to the party, but the pain is still advancing. Blanketing an untra-tight rhythm section with extreme noise and distortion, Cadaverette resembles a jet engine at full roar. Skin-peeling riffage and fully-emoted vocals round out the package.

Cadaverette We Are Everything But ... not anything (self-released)

Oh, and the band is from Portland. The one in Maine. Y'know, the one with the famed music scene. Strangely, I think this band would fit in just fine on the west coast as well, but the relative isolation has obviously helped hone this sound most spectacularly.

Is this punk? Thrash? Grunge? Sludge? Okay, not sludge. The songs are far too kinetic. But the rest apply, sometimes all at once. Like Snailbones, Cadaverette is tailor-made for Touch and Go in its heyday. I'm thinking Die Kreuzen might be the best reference point. That goes back a long ways (I reviewed their final album in 1991).

Perhaps most arresting is how much emotion the band infuses into this sonic destruction. More to the point, Cadaverette takes its influences and turns them up to 11. The needles are pinned most of the time, even in the more introspective moments. The hairs on my arm are fully erect. My hands are shaking as I type this. This is one of the most electric sets I've heard in years. Whoosh!

Jon Worley