While We Wait...Tyvek's Born Cauldron

To be honest, I’m about to reach a tipping point of frustration in waiting for something new from Tyvek. On the tundra, where feets of snow and ice can crush a man’s soul, and the lack of quality bands rolling through town is equally frustrating in these bitter months, we need some new Tyvek. As I surveyed the band I’d like to see most, again, from last year’s bacchanalia of shows, Tyvek usually ranks the highest. Even lugging around a void of new material, they never failed in their rankled quest, each show got furrier and furrier, snarled and loud, more guitars, more drums, more guitars. Those songs in the pocket, “Air Conditioner” or “Needles Drop” or “Still Sleep” have become traditionals for those of us who hold few rivals to this screeching soul-punk from Detroit. And in successive jaunts to Columbus, these songs just got more intense, nearly crossing a threshold where they would become unhinged and not resemble a tune at all, just a pile of tangled chords and noisy shards.

Listening over their Born Cauldron CDR for the fourth time this week, we’ll have to give them a pass – they are progressing, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. This is only a practice “recorded by Damon, in Larry’s basement,” but it sounds as if it’s the ultimate, end-of-days, versions of these Tyvek standards. And, as it’s a fairly raucous practice, it sounds like you’re standing right up front, drowning your sorrows in swill and shaky anthems. Born Cauldron is punishing. And that light at the end? There are a few new ones here -- especially rewarding is “Flowers,” a full-on chugger that gets even higher as it pushes past the two-minute mark and the sci-fi weirdness of “Outer Limits.” Then again we’ll need to wait it out just to see how these coalesce, if they’re even on those new releases? The waiting game continues.