To call Cave In sonic chameleons gives way too much credit to the chameleon. The slow-moving lizard might be able to change its colors, but that’s it. Cave In is more like some sort of heavy music cephalopod, changing not only their color, but also their texture and shape to contort themselves into impossible shapes. Since establishing themselves as a legendary metalcore band with their first two releases, they’ve transformed their sound into psych-metal, space rock, shoegaze, and more mainstream-appropriate alternative before jumping back into metalcore with White Silence.

But on their newest record Heavy Pendulum, Cave In takes their metamorphosis to new extremes. It embraces every part of their history, turning the band into a massive eldritch beast. Just when you think you’ve pinned the record down, it shapeshifts again.

2019’s Final Transmission seemed like a swan song. It compiled demos from late bassist Caleb Scofield into a proper album, wrapping up their career in an impressive thank you note to their fans. No one would have been disappointed if they stopped there. Some might even say that they should have. But that argument will find zero leverage from this record. There is no moment on Heavy Pendulum that sounds like a band trying to limp on past their best-by date. They’re as violent and passionate as ever, offering up their heavy and melodic elements in equal measure.

While the instrumental work leans a touch more toward their Jupiter/Antenna era, there’s plenty of hardcore fire on the disc: screamed vocals are hardly a rarity, and there’s a liberal sprinkling of mosh-ready moments. “New Reality” opens the disc with furious riffs, fiery screams, spacey lead guitar, and Stephen Brodsky’s unmistakable voice (his voice is probably as iconic as Deftones’ Chino Moreno, but without the mainstream audience). “Blood Spiller” follows with a more restrained tempo and more atmospheric guitar work, but it doesn’t lack a single ounce of the opener’s violence. “Amaranthine,” which features lyrics penned by Scofield, stands toe to toe against the heaviest work in their catalog and doesn’t flinch.

The record doesn’t take a breath until the title track, which is as anthemic and inspiring as anything on Antenna, mixing their space rock tendencies with plenty of classic-rock devotion, landing somewhere between Led Zeppelin and Soundgarden. It’s followed by “Pendulambient,” an experimental atmospheric segue reminiscent of some of the more shoegaze inspired moments on Perfect Pitch Black. “Waiting For Love” is practically a ballad—though a ballad filled with some aggressively weird guitar work. “Reckoning,” which finds guitarist Adam McGrath performing lead vocals, heavily features an acoustic guitar and restrained drums.

Where the record really shines though is where the oppositional poles of their sonic palette are melded together. “Blinded by a Blaze” is one of the more beautiful tracks in their catalog, but several moments are undeniably heavy. “Searchers of Hell” has spacey alt-rock verses, but bursts with a full-blown hardcore finale. “Nightmare Eyes” is almost subdued in tempo, but it creeps menacingly throughout its seven-minute runtime (and feels a lot like a Baroness track, which is a great thing). The closer “Wavering Angel” is a staggering twelve-minute opus that finds Cave In turning to let the light shine off of every facet of their sound, like a jeweler examining a ruby.

Even the quieter moments have an edge to them that betrays their hardcore roots. This is undoubtedly influenced by new bassist/backing vocalist Nate Newton, also of a little band called freaking Converge (whom Brodsky joined alongside Chelsea Wolfe for the massive doom collab album Bloodmoon: I). As if Converge didn’t have enough fingerprints on this record, it was also recorded and produced by that band’s guitarist and producer Kurt Ballou, who produced Cave In’s debut, Until Your Heart Stops.

It’s an absolutely massive record: sonic heft aside, its fourteen tracks fill every bit of seventy-one minutes without a single wasted second. It’s the kind of record that only Cave In can create, and except for Scofield’s absence, it feels like it might be the most Cave In-y record they’ve ever released. They manage to fit their entire massive form into a single release (however long it might be). Cave In isn’t just surviving as a band: they’re as alive as they’ve ever been.

Heavy Pendulum is out May 20th through Relapse Records.

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