{"id":52287,"date":"2025-04-26T14:08:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T14:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/52287\/"},"modified":"2025-04-26T14:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T14:08:08","slug":"cave-sermon-fragile-wings-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/52287\/","title":{"rendered":"Cave Sermon – Fragile Wings Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"For the second year in a row, I was blindsided by a silent Cave Sermon<\/strong> drop. At least it didn\u2019t take me 11 months to catch up this time. Album number three, Fragile Wings, sees Charlie Parks returning as a solo act, but now handling vocals on top of everything else. This latter is a welcome development, given how well the previous record proved vocals complement and enhance the unique musical style. After Divine Laughter<\/a> blew my socks off and nonchalantly pushed its way to the top half of my 2024 year-end list, a follow-up so soon filled me with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Surely he couldn\u2019t do it again? But, of course, he has.<\/p>\n

Fragile Wings is instantly recognisable as Cave Sermon<\/strong>, but rather than simply being Divine Laughter part two\u2014not that I would have complained about that\u2014it is tonally quite different. Different, but with the same dreamlike longing at its core. Whereas its predecessor felt nihilistic and angry, Fragile Wings is a little more vulnerable, a little sadder, and more wistful. This shines through the now more prominent melodies, which feel playful and exuberant, in the beguiling way that characterises Cave Sermon<\/strong>\u2019s sound. Fluid layers of liquid strums, riffs that vibrate alternately with urgency and mirth (\u201cHopeless Magic,\u201d \u201c\u201dMoloch\u201d), and tremolos that burr and hum as much as they warble like songbirds up and down scales (\u201cThree-Headed Moth,\u201d \u201cAncient to Someone\u201d). The untamed tempos that lead tracks through a series of stomps, sways, charges, and thoughtful pauses are more mischievous than before, in a way that makes explicit the spirited defiance that bubbled within Divine Laughter. Parks\u2019 vocals work just as well as Miguel M\u00e9ndez\u2019s did, if not better, against this vibrant backdrop, and there\u2019s an additional weight given to the already strange and touching lyrics because their author is now delivering them himself.<\/p>\n

\ufeffFragile Wings by Cave Sermon<\/a><\/p>\n

Fragile Wings is stirring and vivacious, and somehow outdoes Divine Laughter in its sparkling dynamism and bright unusualness. After arresting with odd, colourful arrangements, Cave Sermon <\/strong>looks wryly over at the listener and says, \u201cwatch this,\u201d as some effervescent lead comes frolicking in (\u201cMoloch,\u201d \u201cThree-Headed Moth\u201d), or an already satisfying groove switches to a new dance with a flick and a crash (\u201cHopeless Magic,\u201d \u201cAncient for Someone\u201d); you can\u2019t help but smile back. The very way guitars are distorted, and the atmosphere surrounding their notes and the here-skittish, there-assertive percussion, is\u2026different. And this is all charming because it\u2019s not self-indulgent; not weird and challenging and complicated, but refreshing, like a splash of cool water to the face on a hot day. All the more so given how Cave Sermon <\/strong>makes it look easy, creating a soundscape that seems simpler than it is, managing to presage and reprise melodies and rhythms in a way I can only describe as \u201cvery cool.\u201d Interwoven strands of ethereal ambience\u2014warm strums and purring high notes (\u201cArrows and Clay,\u201d \u201cSunless Morning\u201d)\u2014violent sludgy riffs and a tripping, resonant drumbeat (\u201cMoloch,\u201d \u201cAncient for Someone\u201d); symphonies of burbling tremolo and synths (\u201cHopeless Magic,\u201d \u201cAncient for Someone\u201d); and the delicate assuredness of wavering melodies, each are so carefully placed, but weightless, as though carried by some spirited wind that breezes through each track.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In this organic, careless novelty and expression, Fragile Wings continues what Divine Laughter established, but does it better. Not only is it more poignant, it flows with a more tangible through-line, and even cleverer rhythmic interplay. There is no track-length ambient noise here; this tendency is relegated to the faded conversation that closes \u201cArrows and Clay,\u201d and the birdsong scattered over the serene first act of \u201cSunless Morning.\u201d The difference is that these are not divorced from the music, but part of it, contributing to its sense of nostalgia, and sombre reflectiveness. A harsher version of me would still argue that the first half of \u201cSunless Morning\u201d is a bit too slow of a build, but another would gesture fanatically at the song\u2019s second act, with its quaking bass refrain and heartfelt tremolo descent melody that might actually be the best on the album, before it enters another wild dance I won\u2019t spoil. Cave Sermon<\/strong> has refined their ability to transition between energies and styles whilst keeping the tone consistent. So seamless is the integration that it no longer feels like multiple genres are in play, but like a new one entirely.<\/p>\n

Fragile Wings confirms what I had secretly hoped, that Divine Laughter was not just lightning in a bottle. If anything, it only raises the bar. Cave Sermon<\/strong> create music that is some magical combination of emotionally stirring, endlessly engrossing, and completely unique. There is simply no other artist in metal making music like them. You have to hear this.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: Excellent
DR<\/strong>: 6 | Format Reviewed<\/strong>: 320 kbps mp3
Label: <\/strong>Self-Release
Website<\/strong>: Bandcamp<\/a>
Releases Worldwide<\/strong>: April 16th, 2025<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the second year in a row, I was blindsided by a silent Cave Sermon drop. At least…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[743,28031,10269,28032,11463,28033,12936,77,28034,28035,269,28036,6080,6082,12938,28037,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-52287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-743","9":"tag-4-5","10":"tag-apr25","11":"tag-australian-metal","12":"tag-black-metal","13":"tag-cave-sermon","14":"tag-death-metal","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-experimental-metal","17":"tag-fragile-wings","18":"tag-music","19":"tag-post-metal","20":"tag-review","21":"tag-reviews","22":"tag-self-released","23":"tag-sludge","24":"tag-uk","25":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114404661959246717","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}