Zer0

Antenna is an album that has been lurking in my CD collection for ten years now, quite often forgotten about. I don't even have any other albums by this band, just this one. I know the band started off as a metalcore band on Hydra-Head Records but there is little evidence of that kind of sound here on this album. From what I've read (not sure if it’s completely true or not) is that they broke edge and started smoking weed. It was a wise idea I think, everyone should try weed at least once in their lifetime. It puts things into a different perspective. I got this album quite a few months after it was released on the strength of seeing the promo video for the single 'Inspire'. I didn't remember much about the video itself but I thought the song was damn cool. And if the song was damn cool I must have thought "hey, what the hell, the album must be damn cool too".

Well, kind of. I thought the album was okay at the time but never really got into in a big way. Something about the album seemed slightly off to me at the time, like the guitars sounding too weird or some pure stupid shit that seventeen year old Zero would think. I guess I wasn't used to listening to slightly spaced-out alternative rock back then. I wanted stuff with loud distorted guitars and a greater sense of energy, which was something that was somewhat evident here in songs like 'Inspire' and 'Penny Racer'. Antenna is one of those albums that I grew to appreciate more over the years, even if I don’t listen to it as much as I probably should. And I probably should listen to it more because it's actually damn good. I think that my exploration of the more outer reaches of indie rock and alternative rock over the past five years or so, far out places like space-rock and the more obscure depths of shoegaze, has somewhat made me appreciate this album a lot more. Not that there’s anything really experimental going on here, as I said it's alternative rock with a reasonably spaced-out feel, but I definitely have a greater understanding of the album today and where it’s coming from that I did ten years ago.

Even at its most experimental point, the glacial and spacious sounds of 'Seafrost', it still has a pop familiarity lurking in its shadows and underpinning the song. Songs like 'Stained Silver', 'Youth Overrided' and 'Lost in the Air' have an obvious pop sensibility at their core with soaring choruses and some memorable vocal melodies. The type of songs that their earlier metalcore fans would probably have sheepishly shouted out "sell outs!" upon hearing for the first time. There's better music out there than this and the band probably even have better albums than this. In fact you're probably better off listening to a Failure album. But I just found it fascinating how an album that you only thought was okay about ten years ago sounds so much better when you listen to it today, so fascinating that I decided to write about it and bore you guys. Fun fact #467647762: they named themselves 'Cave In' after the Codeine song of the same name. Bet you didn't know that.

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