It's fitting that the artwork on the new Causey Way album shows bandmembers clad in white, European-military-like uniforms, amid a field of yellow, flowering weeds. A fitting contrast, indeed, because it parallels well the musical contrast of the new album as it diverges frequently from erratic and industrial to ethereal and beautiful — an artsy approach that intensifies the drama and emotion.
It also makes sense that the mocking, frantic rock five-piece would take pride in (humorously) representing itself as a brainwashing, dangerous religious cult (see:
www.thecauseyway.com), its disturbing music, like a "Twilight Zone" episode, jerking its listeners like mindless cult followers from one mood to another. Their new album,
Causey vs. Everything, has a frenzied, paranoid side to it, but it's also energizing and danceable (even if you'll look a little loony dancing like a robot to it).
Sung in Spanish, lead track "Te Como Vivo" begins quietly with the piano, then explodes into racing guitar lines behind evil female vocals, which escalate into an anger recalling the villainous German woman from "Austin Powers." With an industrial-dance feel led by desperate, agonizing pleas (male vocals this time), "Geo Logical Lust" is reminiscent of both the Thrill Kill Kult and Lords Of Acid.
"Money" is, perhaps, the catchiest track on the new album for its wiry guitar, slapping drum beats and the way its broken words flow like they're chasing one another: "If love is money baby/ Why'd they make it baby/ The color of a tree/ The color of a tree/ A tree is green/ And so is money baby/ A tree is free/ So why can't money be?/ ... Set your money free/ Set your money free/ Oh it don't matter/ You can give it to me/ I'll make you big like a Sequoia tree." On "Ann Caelo" and "Take Your Chances," the album eases into a slowed-down, dreamy sphere, with passionate female vocals that may remind you of Lush.
You can sense the band mocking religion and its hypocrisies and righteousness throughout
Causey vs. Everything, but, with "Jesus Loves You," you don't need to sense it because it will — with shaky cries — tell you bluntly: "Jesus loves you/ You're gonna burn/ The end is coming/ Now don't be late/ You're a Catholic/ You're a Jew/ Jehovah Witness/ What ya gonna do?/ You're gonna burn." Man, I would've loved to scare my parents with this one when I was in high school. Just the sci-fi-feeling, screeching rock and stark-mad, shivering vocals would've landed my stereo in the middle of the street. But maybe the intermittent angelic, sweet sounds would've won 'em over.... Nah.
