On March 10, 2023, the Berlin-based duo CAVA released their debut album DAMAGE CONTROL. With this they have been on an eleven-performance tour of Germany and Austria since March 24th. What makes CAVA musically and in terms of content?
Long-awaited by her fans, the first album follows 2021’s self-titled EP, which – as well as third on the long-player – features the song “Many Nights”. The piece also reveals a common thread in their musical work: riot grrrl meets garage rock. If the riff reminds you of Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out” for even a second, the aggressive drums, driven by cymbal hits, and the almost frustrated vocals shatter the thought of the indie rock classic.
The A side
DAMAGE CONTROL includes twelve songs and starts with a scream. “Toothache” is the name of the first song, but the question of whether this toothache is the actual trigger for the scream does not arise, because the songs written by the two members Peppi and Mela are the finest garage punk between frustration and animation to dance to. With the beginning of the fifth number they take a short break in tempo. “Touch My Skin” looms like a storm. Unexpectedly, the built-up tension erupts: “I am just a casuality in your fuckin life / a victim of my body / a victim of my feelings / for you I’ll bleed” A sacrifice of my body / A sacrifice of my feelings / For you I will bleed”). “8:00 AM” is their dirtiest guitar riff to date, and its feedback delays the end of the song. And then – exclusively on the pressing – a hidden track that completes the A-side.
Blue Monday and the Depression
The B-side starts with a song that can be understood as an example of the content of the band’s musical work: “Blue Monday”. Except for the title, there is no reference whatsoever to the 12″ single of the same name, the world’s best-selling one, which New Order released 40 years ago.
British psychologist Cliff Arnall used “Blue Monday” to calculate the saddest day of the year and came up with the third Monday in January. Scientifically at least controversial, rather untenable, Mela and Peppi take up the term, have the “saddest day of the year”, but are more frequented and show that it is about more than just being in a bad mood by describing classic symptoms of depression. Coupled with the album title, the piece creates the feeling that the eponymous damage limitation seems to represent part of many realities of life and a principle that many can understand, which addresses the everyday burdens of the younger generations, which consequently affect both personal feelings, i.e. self-perception , as well as on the interpersonal. Especially, but not exclusively, among young people, current problems such as fear of the future due to climate change, wage developments, the Europe-wide pension debates, increasing stress and ever-increasing inequality and hopelessness are increasing the mental problems.
“An estimated 16 to 20 out of 100 people will suffer from depression or chronic depressive mood at least once in their lives,” says the website Ministry of Health about the “widespread disease”.
In terms of content, CAVA move fluently and can therefore not be classified into a category. If they are also concerned with feminism – the importance of which of course cannot be overemphasized – it would not do the LP and the band justice to limit it thematically to that.
Despite the songs that sometimes make you want to dance, the album seems to be inherently despairing. This classifies damage control into different areas of everyday life, sometimes even in the form of the band’s name-giving “Spanish answer to sparkling wine”, as the Catalan sparkling wine was once described, so that CAVA balance between partying and hangover. A desperation that perhaps stems from the fact that the goal of a generation should not be damage control. The goal that is actually obvious should be to form a whole within society, independent of generations, in which no harm is done to the individual in the first place. “But maybe the others don’t have a hand,” to conclude with the words of Ronald M. Schernikaus.
CAVACATION tour
(24.03. Leipzig // Lettuce)
(25.03. Fürth // art cellar)
(26.03. Munich // Cafe Kult)
03/28 Stuttgart // Prism
03/29 Marburg //Cafe Trauma
03/30 Cologne // Nieler Freedom
03/31 Hanover // At Chez Heinz
01.04. Kassel // culture factory
02.04. Weimar // Gerber
06.04. Hamburg // Slot
04/13 Vienna // Fluc
04/14 Graz // Sub
04/15 Linz // Kapu
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