Tuesday 20 January 2015

Caina - Setter Of Unseen Snares LP


I'm wrestling with some decisions that will shape the future of This Noise Is Ours. You know the types; Should I go down this avenue or that one? All I can say at the moment is that they're music related and won't effect the core blog.

Anyway, I'm getting majorly off-topic now. Manchester-based black metallers Caina have a new album out. While still a solo-project on record, AC-B has assembled a live band featuring members of Cold Fell and ex-members of Esoteric Youth, some of whom provide guest appearances here. Setter Of Unseen Snares follows last year's split with Esoteric Youth and 2013's Earth Info tape It's been released as a collaboration between Church of Fuck and Skin & Bones Records in the UK and Broken Limbs Recordings in the US. This is the first 2015 release that's made its way onto the blog as well!

Tracklist:-

1. Introduction
2. I Am The Flail Of The Lord
3. Setter Of Unseen Snares
4. Vowbound
5. Applicant Supplicant
6. Orphan

The opener of Setter Of Unseen Snares is simply titled Introduction. Its a spoken word sample that's punctuated by guitar, which provides distorted ambience alongside mournful choral chanting. I Am The Flail Of The Lord is the first full leap into the blackened psyche of Caina. A tome about procreation and how the majority of our species shouldn’t carry on. The songs bedrock is its minimal instrumentation during the verses, before the full blackened torture is unleashed towards the end. The title-track rings out in full metallic glory and heads straight for the jugular. Featuring guest vocals from Old Skin’s MR, there a somewhat darker edge to it. The drums and the ambient guitar sits at opposing ends of the musical spectrum, with the latter sounding hauntingly calming while the former flails away underneath. 

The first few tracks move along at quite a frenetic pace and that pace carries on into the second half of the record, with Vowbound being equally as energetic. Energetic may not be a word you associate with black metal, but I think it some up AC-B’s song-writing and structure thus far of Setter Of Unseen Snares. Applicant/Supplicant is the last of Caina’s icy, short blasts. Strangely though, it’s also one of the most catchy tracks on the album, thanks to the guitar melody that's used during the first half of the song. It hints at lengthier, greater things to come as it’s varied movements pass.

The whole atmosphere of Setter Of Unseen Snares changes on final track Orphan. This is what I was expecting the full record to be like. Starting with low orchestral ambience, the clean vocals of guest VM (Hateful Abandon) soon take over with a startling and commanding presence. Live conspirator LT (also of Cold Fell) lends his rasping screams to the latter half of the song, contrasting VM’s vocals and adding a further layer of darkness. This is the most engrossing song on Setter Of Unseen Snares for obvious reasons and it shows AC-B’s willingness to explore his creative mind, spilling it out into songs like this. 


Setter Of Unseen Snares provides an honest and emotive glimpse inside the world of its creator and with the help of carefully selected guests, it opens up. Musically and production wise it’s perfect and despite what a supposed US black metal “musician” might say, Caina is more relevant now than ever. 

There's an exclusive stream of the song Vowbound up via Cvlt Nation here:-

http://www.cvltnation.com/exclusive-cvlt-nation-streaming-caina-vowbound-footage/

LP's can be purchased below:- 

Caina - http://caina.bigcartel.com
CoF Records - http://hatecof.bigcartel.com
Skin And Bones Records - http://skinandbonesrecs.bigcartel.com
Broken Limbs Recordings - http://brokenlimbsrecordings.com/shop/

Caina Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cainaband
CoF Records Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/hatecof
Skin And Bones Records Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/SkinAndBonesRecords
Broken Limbs Recordings Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/brokenlimbs

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