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Caustic Casanova, God How I Envy the Deaf: The Shining Sun

Caustic Casanova God How I Envy the Deaf

Shortly before Washington, D.C., progressive noisemakers Caustic Casanova would issue their third-maybe-fourth long-player, God How I Envy the Deaf, as their debut on Magnetic Eye Records, the band posted an “unboxing video” on Facebook that featured drummer/vocalist Stefanie Zaenker, totally straight-faced, unwrapping the CD. The caption posted with it read, “Check out this rad unboxing video with drummer/vocalist Stefanie Zaenker! For more creative content and to see the rest of the unboxing follow us on Spotify and/or dm us a picture of your favorite mammal!”

This intelligent, pointed skewering of cloying social media promotion is pretty emblematic of Caustic Casanova‘s outlook on the universe and reverent sonic irreverence overall. Comprised of Zaenker, bassist/vocalist Francis Beringer and guitarists Andrew Yonki and newcomer Jake Kimberley, they’re a band who very clearly love a range of styles and see no reason to draw a line between them. Across the nine-track/50-minute run of God How I Envy the Deaf, that comes out in a meld of hardcore crunch, heavy rock groove and thoughtful songcraft, with cuts like “Filth Castle” and “Taos Lightning” casting an identity that pulls from multiple sources while being pieced together with a hard-won confidence from years of touring and experience in the studio.

Outright, it’s worth noting that God How I Envy the Deaf is the heaviest-sounding work Caustic Casanova have ever done, and as it’s been producer J. Robbins at the helm for their studio work at least since 2012’s Someday You Will Be Proven Correct, a thickening of tone as compared to 2015’s Breaks (review here) and generally more aggressive spirit seems like it can only be a conscious decision. Humor and willingness to embrace the absurd are obviously a part of it — hence the pigeon propaganda cover art; note the boundless loyalty to Parrot Mao — and I haven’t had the benefit of a lyric sheet, but whether it’s opener “Fancy English” (premiered here) or the guttural shouting of a grocery list at the start and the concluding “an egg!” in “Donut and the Golden Hen,” there’s no shortage of personality on display.

It can be a fine line for a band to walk, and I think more often than not those who step back from doing so don’t want to be seen as the joke itself rather than those telling it, but Caustic Casanova‘s aggro take throughout staves this off, with plenty of divergences in style as on the echoing post-whatever of “Memory King” and the floating guitar amid the hard-hitting hook of later highlight “Truth Syrup,” wherein they seem to be answering the question of what Kylesa might’ve sounded like had they kept their tonal impact in kind with their melodic progression, to righteous result.

The diversity of their approach is united through songwriting and production, and even as God How I Envy the Deaf veers outward from the rules of its own making on its final two tracks, “Roger B. Taney,” — named for the US Supreme Court chief justice who said in 1857 that slaves weren’t citizens and the congress couldn’t outlaw slavery and featuring Emily Danger on vocals — and the 10-minute closer “Boxed and Crated,” which is by no means the first longer-form work Caustic Casanova have done but ends the record with a surprising devolution into cacophony, there is an underlying sense of direction and purpose to what they’re doing.

caustic casanova

But there is no mistaking the challenge that Caustic Casanova are putting forth on God How I Envy the Deaf. It is in the winding riffs and hardcore-born punch of “Filth Castle,” in the riffier groove of “If Your Brain is Properly Oiled” and in the lumber and shouts of “Boxed and Crated,” which pushes to the furthest extremes of any of the material here. To listeners, the challenge is to step outside of expectation for the limits of genre. There is no reason rock can’t be metal, punk can’t be heavy and all of it can’t be both progressive, shredding and fun.

The songs don’t necessarily invite dissection — this riff comes from this, that riff comes from that, etc. — but they stand up to that kind of scrutiny should someone want to get into it, and they prove only more effective and more memorable with multiple listens. That is, while the immediate impression Caustic Casanova make is that of an energized, considered act not at all beyond a bit of pummel when the situation calls for it — as it does at several points throughout here — the cliché of putting more in and getting more out applies to actually hearing what they’re doing from piece to piece. You can dig as deep as you like and the ground stays solid.

That is a credit to their songwriting and the decade-plus they’ve been together, and their maturity has been hard won — it would be inappropriate to discuss just about anything they do without noting the steady touring they’ve undertaken for extended stretches for years now; one lengthy list of dates after another in inheritance of a D.C. DIY punker ethic. Their chemistry, even with Kimberley as a relatively recent addition to make what was a trio into a four-piece, is unmistakable and well on display in the turns within these songs as well as the shifts between them, the spacious and stomping “Memory King” giving way to the unmitigated instrumentalist speed-shove of “Donut and the Golden Hen,” which makes an as-fitting centerpiece as one could reasonably ask for an album so brazenly working on its own level.

Another challenge of God How I Envy the Deaf is perhaps even more crucial, and that’s to Caustic Casanova themselves. You can hear it in how they’re pushing themselves to be not just heavier or meaner or louder, but more realized creatively and more willful in how they bring together the various elements that comprise their approach. They’re a progressive band not just because they write thoughtful compositions, but because they actually progress — continually. Perhaps the real achievement of God How I Envy the Deaf is how it manages to so much maintain the band’s personality stamp even as it embraces this heavier stylistic ideology, refusing to sacrifice who they are to fit into some tidy box of genre.

And more, it is less a push-pull of resistance than a continual drive toward the individual. Their sound, even as it continues to change, is their own. Their songs, same. Their perspective, same. I don’t know if they’ll ever be the kind of band fully embraced by the kind of hype machine that, say, might seriously ask a fanbase their favorite mammal, but on God How I Envy the Deaf, they manifest as entirely themselves, and that suits them better.

Caustic Casanova, God How I Envy the Deaf (2019)

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