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If you’re unaware of Cromagnon are the trio of Austin Grasmere (lead vocals, music), Brian Elliot (lead vocals, music) and the enigmatic The Connecticut Tribe (music, sounds and background vocals) who were a group of drugged up art students that lived around the corner from the Velvet Underground in the 60s and they worshiped Sun Ra.

O.K. I’m not convinced about all that but by the time you get past the adventorous opening two tracks, the album is worth getting for the manic free-style rant of ‘Organic Sundown’; street percussion meets space is the place.

I’ve not heard ‘Organic Sundown’ before but with it’s heavy percussion and psych vocal wailings (you’d be hard pressed to call them lyrics) this is my sort of avante guard Sunday morning chill and Saturday night boogie. Killer track for 7m 13 sec; think ESP does experimental jazz and that’ll be fairly close.

So ‘Fantasy’ sounds like a piss take of the Beach Boys being tortured by the Joker gargling vs Police siren and AM radio band hoppin’; Charles Manson eat your heart out.

Unless your doing some sort research project, I’d skip that one as the next, ‘Crow Of The Black Trees’ is folkish by comparison - dark menacing minimal flamenco al la Wicker Man way; Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band would seem to be quite normal compared to this guys!

To be honest, this is not an easy listen and if it wasn’t for this reviewers dedication to the cause, I could have turned off quite early on as ‘Toth. Scribe 1’ is a noise fest that would have been a bit of revelation at the time and in truth, still packs a gothic drone metal punch now. But as with most things, patience reaps rewards and the manic bird-spotting Dylan Thomas-ness of ‘Ganitalia’ is a bit of a favourite.

This album takes sound back to the origins of man - as in the title Cave Rock - and even now it’s both retro and ahead of its time. It’s rough, its raw and it’s so un-corporate, it could have only been released at the dark ember stage of the summer of love. And Sun Ra/Mars Volta fans (erm.. that’s me) will love the garoriam chante-electric guitar feedback of the closing track, ‘First World Of Bronze’.

Without doubt an ablum of its time but there’s at least three ‘historic’ killer tracks here and possibly more. Love, love, love this one.

Hectic Mix nominations: ‘First World Of Bronze’, ‘Organic Sundown’, ‘Ganitalia’

Reviewed: Cromagnon - Cave Rock (ESP-disk) Cat. No: ESP2001 Release date: June 2009.
Tracklisting:
1. Caledonia
2. Ritual Feast Of The Libido
3. Organic Sundown
4. Fantasy
5. Crow Of The Black Tree
6. Genitalia
7. Toth, Scribe I
8. First World Of Bronze

Links:
www.espdisk.com
Formed in 2004, 3 ex-members of the band “Loop Junktion” started the new band named “Cro-magnon”.
www.cro-magnon.jp
www.myspace.com/cromagnonmusic