The Narrow Caves is the first Audiostate ever released, a new product combining the grandiosity of Hollywood films with the intimacy of audio to create an "ear-movie" experience. Adapted from a script by award-winning novelist, screenwriter, and director S. Craig Zahler, The Narrow Caves features voice acting by Vincent D'Onofrio, Will Patton, Lili Simmons and Wyatt Russell. Binary Reptile provides an eerie score that contributes to the cinematic feel of this haunting piece...

To be honest, I'm not really sure what this is all about. The press release and a quick Google search don't really shine much light on it. I have no idea what an "ear-movie" is. Isn't that just a radio play!!? But to be honest that's irrelevant in any case.

The music here, to my mind, just wasn't strong enough to stand on its own. It's not really something I'd listen to on its own merits, for pleasure. The score contains 13 tracks (38 min, 54 sec) and sounds like a musical experiment from the '80s...

The opening track 'Charred Woodlands' sounds like the sort of music that someone who has just purchased music software Cubase may put together to get their head around how the program works.

The press info did have a synopsis, if that helps at all: "In Florida, 1983, two college students meet at a yard party and do not hit it off. Walter and Ruby have no reason to reprise this antagonistic encounter, but something strange and almost primordial burgeons within each of them. Their thoughts and dreams turn toward each other, and in very little time they find themselves in an intense and unique relationship. What lies at the bottom of their strange connection is unearthed when Walter joins Ruby on a holiday trip to her home in upstate New York, where a living darkness inhabits the woodlands that surround her family's mansion. This engrossing and unpredictable blend of mystery, horror, and romance subverts the idea of "fated love" while exploring strange compulsions, intense desires, and ancient mysteries that are best left buried deep in the earth."

Maybe those that know what The Narrow Caves is (and why this album is called Crawl into the Narrow Caves) will get something from it. For me it was just a rather fun, if pointless, trip back in time.

5

Darren Rea