Don Caballero: What Burns Never Returns (2LP-yellow) LP

Blending their phenomenally complex early structures and aggression with a new found love of harmonies this album paved the way for bands like Battles (of which Don Cab guitarist would form) and showed the world that math rock didn’t have to be all po-faced all the time. From the opening taps of ‘Don Caballero 3’ you are somehow instantly aware that you’re in for a real treat; this is a track that unfolds in chapters twisting and turning your expectations until you’re left at the end a gibbering wreck of nerves. What we see here is a band at the top of their game, and they might not have lasted any longer with the ‘classic’ lineup but here they mastered their craft; Damon Che’s precision breathless percussion paired up with Williams’ frenetic tapping, all framed in 5-6 minute packages for easy consumption. Some levelled that this was Don Cab gone pop, but I don’t see that as a bad thing, the hooks that shone through were bringing new vigour and hope to a tired, dulling scene and the band proved that they were more than a mere genre stereotype. Basically, if you want to hear technical rock music at its most powerful and most jaw dropping then you need to invest in ‘What Burns Never Returns’ without delay… it’s simply an essential purchase.