The best song on Exuvia, buy a comfortable distance, is Pig. It’s got all the cranked-up aggression and firepower that Cage Fight thrive on, not to mention a terrific showcase of Rachel Aspe’s range as a vocalist. Most of all, it shows what their hybrid of hardcore and melodeath can achieve at its tightest, something that its album can occasionally struggle to keep up with.
Perhaps that was inevitable, in a way. Cage Fight’s self-titled debut set such a sturdy bar, but for their first lot of post-COVID material, wanting to expand and explore isn’t a bad thing. They certainly have the means for it, with alumni of TesseracT, Malefice and The Five Hundred among their ranks. That’s bolstered by the juggernaut of a frontwoman that is Aspe, a fact that’s been brought up once already and certainly will again. But for all that might suggest, Exuvia is better when Cage Fight stick to what they know. When it’s good, it’s really good; when there’s something left to be desired, you can recognise where it is almost immediately.
Note how the word ‘bad’ is deliberately not used there. It’s hard to make a claim like that when the level of quality musicianship is so apparent. Musical construction, however, can be a different story, and the telltale track lengths indicate when to look out for it. At face value, there can be an issue with flow when six-minute songs are sprinkled around, double the size of most of what’s around them with no in-between. The best illustration is right at the start, where, after the bludgeoning gauntlet of Oxygen, Pig and Pick Your Fighter, Un Bon Souvenir just doesn’t conserve that momentum. With more deliberate atmosphere and first main use of clean vocals, it’s trying to evoke the grandeur of Cage Fight’s melodeath side, only to trip up on a more nonstandard arrangement that ultimately does no favours. It’s pretty much the same with the title track, too, down to the seeds of good ideas that, for the life of them, don’t sprout like they should.
At least Élégie goes a bit of the way towards closing the gap, as the one big swing on Exuvia that unequivocally pays off. It’s got an easier lay-up as a sweeping ballad to round off, but a smoother, more concise vision proves a lot easier to spot. There’s almost an air of Machine Head’s more haunted moments in how Cage Fight play this, with gradual restraint and intensity. Most pleasingly, it’s proof that they aren’t shackled to simple bruisers, and do have the capability to open out when they want to. It’s just a shame that Exuvia doesn’t stick the landing with that more often.
To be fair, though, it’s easier to ascribe more weight to that side of the album than it deserves. Yes, moments like those can feel disruptive during a full listen, but they aren’t so common that they actively sink this. Even if they draw in proportionately more air, there’s still a handful of real ragers on Exuvia that justify themselves all on their own. Pig has already been touched upon as the retributive gutting that stands head and shoulders above everything else, but whenever Cage Fight are in the mood to dish out a good, old-fashioned head-caver, it almost always works. It’s where the likes of Pick Your Fighter, The Hammer Crush and IHYG (I Hate Your Guts) get their power from, handily doing away with sophistication and being all the better for it.
In the intersection between hardcore and melodeath, Cage Fight’s richness of ability truly stands out. Both styles have bearing, too; Deathstalker, as a straight hardcore song that sequesters its heaviest side till the very end, is proof of how important that unity is. More often than not, that proves to not be an issue whatsoever. Even if Pig once again sets an unassailable standard with how dirty its guitar tone is, Exuvia revels in the chance to dip into its heaviness. You feel the two-layered approach juicing up the melodeath of Oxygen or the straightforward, Hatebreed-style beatdown of The Hammer Crush, both satisfyingly meaty and mauling. Nick Plews’ drumming also deserves a shoutout, as a detailed yet punishing root that Cage Fight would be a lot lesser across the board without.
If you really want an example of ‘lesser without’, though…yeah, it has to come back to Aspe. As a presence behind the mic, she’s phenomenal enough, but the range and variety of uncleans she explores almost feels boundless when Exuvia seems to pluck new angles out at a moment’s notice. Pig squeals; death growls; panicked shrieks; a chest-beating bark reminiscent of hardcore’s premier adrenaline junkies; all are dealt with expertly. Significant portions of cleans might be the weakest link (see Un Bon Souvenir as the main culprit yet again), though maybe that’s a case of having less airtime for them to wow. Otherwise, this is about as note-perfect as you could hope a metal performance would be.
It’s when you throw around claims like that that you realise how much about Exuvia there is to like. Perhaps its inconsistencies are too pronounced to love it, but in a good few isolated moments? Absolutely. Cage Fight know what they’re doing, without question, and seeing them locking in on metal that can feel this hard this easily is difficult not to get at least the prickle of a thrill from. And there’s nothing to say they won’t suitably expand in future, either; there’s enough different creative impulses within the band to inevitably get there one day. That day isn’t today, but the ideas certainly count. So even if Exuvia’s best comes from Cage Fight sticking to their guns, there’s still a lot in there that’s totally worthwhile.
For fans of: Heriot, Power Trip, Jesus Piece
‘Exuvia’ by Cage Fight is released on 1st May on Spinefarm Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
