The music of The Caffiends is rooted directly in hardcore but upon listening to Fission, Fusion and Things Made of Concrete; one gets the feeling that they're reaching for something more. While the first two tracks ('Velocitation' and 'Expedient Exaggeration' respectively) find them going through the motions of their hardcore peers, 'Beauty Queen', the third track finds them playing elevator music that's both boring and over indulgent. It makes even less sense upon hearing the songs following it shifting back into that same hardcore sound that it broke from.
Another interlude finds them exploring spacey trip hop beats that actually work really well. Once again, one is led to wonder why it's being included on a record that for all intents and purposes stays strictly within the parameters of the hardcore genre. The record holds a few very engaging moments but the entire experience is in the end, dulled due to all of the rabbit trails it seems to go down. In a word, it's plagued by lack of direction and a constant stream of filler.
1.5/4
