The Best Thing I Heard This Week: Caveman's Coco Beware

My parents have developed a Thanksgiving tradition that tends to ensure an interesting night every year. When I was growing up, it was always a small gathering at my Grandmother's house. After she passed, we spent a few years in limbo before my parents decided to start hosting a gathering. We get the usual smattering of family (aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins), but we also get a few...we'll call them stragglers--all are welcome under my parents' roof that evening. Everyone brings a dish and then can relax while the festivities begin. Bottles of wine are opened, quickly emptied, and then discarded. The din rises slowly over the early evening, coming to a crescendo as the meal is finally ready, and everyone shuts up to eat and maybe sober up, just a little. For my part, I usually take care of the music, but was woefully unprepared this year because of some technical issues with my computer and external hard drive. Regardless, I grabbed a few cd's out of my car when we arrived, including Caveman's new release, Coco Beware. It ended up being the perfect music for a relaxed, informal Thanksgiving dinner.

The best song on Coco Beware is "Old Friend." Comparisons made to the Shins are not far off. It's mid-tempo, as most of the songs on this record are, something that is tough to do well and keep a listener entertained. But everything about this song is near perfect. Matthew Iwanusa's vocals are vulnerable but not whiny, and the story is affecting ("and I sat down / on the lawn / and you tell me that she stayed out / oh oh oh / everyone's around / you stayed in tonight / it was right on time / 'he was just an old friend'"). The synths shimmer but aren't too sweet, and no one sound overwhelms all the rest. This is a great pop song.



The record's opener, "A Country's King of Dreams," has some dreamy, shimmery pop elements to it, a la Deerhunter, but the percussion is more akin to a relaxed version of the Dodos. Indeed, the most upbeat song on the record, "My Time," also has elements of the Dodos sound, with the group "Whoah-ohh" vocals and strident percussion. Coco Beware changes pace well, with songs like "Great Life" slowing the record down a bit without losing focus. "Decide" picks up the pace, and sounds like some of Caribou's Andorra. The tough thing about this record is that it isn't easily defined. It's not slow or upbeat, it's not raucous or subdued. Coco Beware treads a middle-ground that few records effectively do.



So whether it was circumstance or fate that brought Caveman's Coco Beware to our Thanksgiving Dinner, it worked better than I could have imagined. Much like the stragglers we bring in every year (and I mean that in the most endearing way--the stragglers are the best part), the music fit perfectly into the dynamic of the evening. That moment when you sit down to dinner, mostly drunk, appetite subdued from the 7 glasses of Cote du Rhone you had in the past 2 hours, musical choice is of vast importance. Too soft and you're passed out on the dinner table, face awash in a melange of cranberry dressing, mashed potatoes, and tofurkey. Too loud and a headache is induced, the rooms swirls, and you awake the next morning to find the same mix of bastardized fruit, potatoes, and turkey substitute on the back of your head. Cavemna's Coco Beware is not only the best thing I heard this week, but it saved many of us from a Thanksgiving disaster.