15th June 2019

Review: “The Burden of Purpose” EP by Caged Existence

A female fronted four piece Metallic Hardcore band from Melbourne Australia, Caged Existence are a band who don’t follow any rules. Having put out a 5 track EP “The Body Prison” in May 2018, they spun back around in November with a pair of tunes under the name “The Body Prison: Cantos” before letting us have this new trio of songs 7 months on. You’d think that they’d want to save up the tunes for a bigger output, but Stephanie, Jack, Will and Pablo seem to have other ideas…

The spoken word introduction of “Liar’s Tongue” gives a My Ruin feel to the opening with a Tairrie B esq depth to Stephanie’s approach over some big open drum battery patterns before riffs kick in full force and that familiar bark returns over Metallic Hardcore guitars. All the elements of an early 2000’s Metallic Hardcore band that would have been branded Metalcore are here with touches of Walls of Jericho and squealed guitar work a plenty. “Buried Beneath” shows more of what Caged Existence capable with some dark and brooding building guitar work that creates an atmosphere of torment echoed from the lyrics. Stephanie uses some interesting pitch changes to keep her caustic unclean vocals fresh and the spoken word element adds gravity to proceedings. Her bark may seem punishing to some but it never reached inaudible levels. There is a familiar bounce to “Burden of Purpose” with its main riff having a small break in it to drive it home. The Stephanie continues to unleash her inner demons lyrically, matching off the caustic tones with the message and again that re-occuring spoken word line ties the whole EP together nicely. A trio of short, sharp bursts of anguished material amid headbangable riffs and a huge drum sound make for a decent experience, but you can’t escape the desire for more. The title track is the longest tune at 3:48 and the bands career to date sees the majority of songs at the sub 3 minute mark. The spoken word element is a nice touch, it would be great to have a full verse of it or a spoken word track in its entirety. Overall it’s a fine piece of Metallic Hardcore that causes earth quakes on the opposite side of the Globe to were it’s played with the tunes themselves being as solid as concrete. Give us more, it’s what we want! [7.5/10]

Track listing