Cold Cave – Cherish the Light Years

The follow-up to 2009’s acclaimed debut Love Comes Close sees the New York-based Cold Cave continue to hone their addictive, irrepressible take on 80s goth and electro. Although Cherish the Light Years wears its influences on its sleeve – the Cure and Depeche Mode in particular – they function more as initiating inspirations than inflexible sonic templates.

From opener The Great Pan is Dead onwards, the relentless, razor-edged industrial percussion underpinning the majority of these songs recalls A Place to Bury Strangers’ own updating of similar touchstones. The mood, though, eschews that outfit’s nihilistic fixations in favour of an overwrought romantic intensity. When the tempo does let up, as on the arpeggiated stadium electro of Underworld USA, the tone remains defiantly epic. There is sonic diversity and subtlety here, but a singularity of vision which means that, for all its pop sensibility, Light Years is an emotionally demanding record – and one which rewards the attention it craves. [Sam Wiseman]