Gig review: The Cave Singers, King Tut’s

THE CAVE SINGERS

KING TUT’S, GLASGOW

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WITH their two previous albums, 2007’s Invitation Songs and 2009’s Welcome Joy, Seattle trio The Cave Singers staked out their backwoods patch within the sprawling US indie-folk sector, blending winsome rustic sparseness with hints of gothic menace lurking beyond the campfire’s glow.

This year’s third release, No Witch, from which their set here was largely drawn, amped up the ante with a mainline dose of bare-knuckle country-blues and rock influences, albeit still centred on Derek Fudesco’s looping, pulsing guitar lines – now mainly electric, and at times reminiscent of Tinariwen’s “desert blues” sound in their hypnotic cumulative impact.

The new material’s louder, heavier approach freed drummer Marty Lund to cut loose with some seriously satisfying welly, while vocalist Pete Quirk – also on rhythm guitar, harmonica and melodica – whose gutsy, rasping nasal drawl mounted periodically to an outright red-blooded roar, completed a mix that elsewhere recalled both Steve Earle and Seasick Steve.

The grittily weathered textures of Quirk’s delivery belied its rhythmic adroitness, which often saw him singing just behind or ahead of the backing’s foursquare beat, lending a welcome variety and sometimes conversational quality to the songs.

Weighed against this, though, was the fact that his somewhat strangulated style of articulation rendered virtually every word unintelligible, robbing the music of any specific reference points.

SUE WILSON