Brain in a Cage

I am no fan of any of the guttural “RRRRAAAWW” metal-hybrid bands that puke up the rage from “deep inside.” It’s usually phony parroted posturing, as brittle and empty as the vessels that deliver it. High-school rockers Brain in the Cage do their share of growling and screaming on their first CD, released on the independent, local Idlevinyl label, and it does wear thin pretty quickly. Thankfully they don’t stop there, offering strong and soaring vocal melodies on both “Calling” and my favorite song, the closer “Fin,” that contrast well and breath some dynamics into the mix. And, lyrically throughout, there are challenges to social and political conventions that are pretty smart and very energized: “Welcome to the main event/ Wake up and smell the violence / It’s about this time that we realize…/ we’re all as good as dead,” from “Wake Up and Smell the Violence.” There is an unmistakable fire lit under these guys, and that, combined with the huge guitar sound, has been enough to make me keep putting this disc in whenever I need to inject a spark into the workday.