“Like a black hole with feelings – Cavern Deep bring their cosmic doom saga to a triumphant, tear-streaked finale.”
From the moment the first note lumbers out of the speakers like some ancient beast dragging its body across stars and ruins, it’s clear: The Bodiless isn’t just the closing chapter of a trilogy – it’s the ascension of Cavern Deep into the pantheon of psychedelic doom greatness.
Born in the early days of the pandemic, these Swedish alchemists began whispering through digital corridors, soon dropping their self-titled debut and lighting the first torch in what would become a three-part sonic descent into madness, mythology, and metaphysics. Now, with Part III: The Bodiless, they've climbed out the other side – not cleansed, but transformed. Burned. Glowing.
This is doom with vision, baby. No meandering fuzz for fuzz’s sake. No copy-paste Sabbath worship. Cavern Deep conjure entire worlds. Whole civilizations. The album’s opener, "The Bodiless", doesn’t just start – it rises, with Marty Harvey of Slomatics delivering a vocal sermon that feels like it's being broadcast from the Event Horizon itself. The guitars move tectonically, the bass rumbles like the voice of an old god, and the drums feel more ritualistic than rhythmic – like they’re summoning something you maybe don’t want to meet.
From there, the journey twists through fungal ruins, dying suns, and wombs of cosmic queens. Songs like “Queen Womb” and “Putrid Sentry” channel the theatrical weight of Candlemass but drape it in ambient shadows and progressive weirdness. You’ll catch echoes of Electric Wizard, Morgana Lefay, and Type O Negative if they were trapped in a cave for 1000 years with nothing but vintage organs and bad dreams.
And oh, the organs. Without them, Cavern Deep would be a damn fine doom band. With them? They’re celestial. The interplay of keys and guitar in “Galaxies Collide” – maybe the best track here – lifts the whole thing from the graveyard into orbit. This isn’t music you just hear. You drift through it. Eyes closed. Limbs heavy. Mind open.
Then there’s “Moskstraumen” – the boldest move yet. A saxophone in doom? Shouldn’t work. Absolutely does. It weaves through the song like a ghost in a trenchcoat, adding noir melancholy to the psychedelic sludge. Imagine Van der Graaf Generator jamming with YOB in the ruins of Atlantis. It’s that kind of strange, glorious magic.
Throughout the record, Cavern Deep show the kind of fearless growth most bands only dream of. Whether you’ve followed the story since Part I or just stumbled into the void now, The Bodiless welcomes you with six tracks of slow-burning majesty and a narrative you don’t need to understand to feel in your bones.
The concept – still mysterious, still Lovecraftian – takes a backseat to the sound itself. And what a sound it is: full, immersive, honest. Like a sermon from the abyss.
Part III: The Bodiless is a shimmering slab of psychedelic doom perfection. It’s heavy, heartfelt, and haunted – a record that doesn’t just end a trilogy, but opens a portal. For fans of the slow, the strange, and the sublime, Cavern Deep have delivered an instant classic.
-Helge Neumann
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