Instrumental bands continue to fascinate me. Perhaps it has something to do with growing up around a lot of jazz and my Dad's regular midnight rendezvous with his saxophone. Instrumentals, whether they're jazz, rock or some twisted experimental bit, intrigue me. I find instrumentals to be one of the few forms of musical expression that lacks a distinct hierarchy. As each instrument interacts with its sibling, there's a glaring absence of a voice taking center stage over its backing counterparts. And as each instrument voices its own feelings, you're left to fill in the gaps with your own thoughts and melodies, and perhaps even a bit of your own added music -- an occasional tap on the knee or an unconscious stomp of the foot.

The Sacrifice Poles begin their self-titled CD with a convincing, orchestrated guitar execution, aptly titled "Guitarmeggedon." The sheer intensity of this number is almost overpowering; you'll wonder how the band will be able to keep up this pace for the remainder of the album. As the strange union of band and listener travels from track to track, an evolution of sorts occurs. The Poles infuse bits of blurry, spaced-out guitar rock into a mixture of crashing ride cymbals and heavily effected chords, smoothly nudging you forward. As the CD advances, the mood turns testy with mounting trepidation, as if there's something ugly just over the musical horizon. "Chow Foon the Moon" sounds like a musical mushroom cloud erupting in front of you, as barbaric bass lines crunch through upsetting metal-tinged math rhythms. A bombastic "Chewable Robots" piques the mind with a complicated mixture of keyboards, steel drums and swirling guitar winds, enveloping the walls of your room like a tornado straight out of Oz.

So, in a way, it's totally irrelevant information that The Sacrifice Poles are the alter-ego of Cave In. The Sacrifice Poles are actually an extension of my mind -- some sort of unconscious creative cooperation with a group on the other side of the country. They provide an undeniably interesting groundwork that lets my brain wander, my thoughts commingling with other indefinable globules, ultimately creating a beautiful mixture of many thoughts in one cohesive but intangible entity. Sure, it all sounds a bit heady...but fuck the mental analysis. Drop this one into your CD tray, sit back and enjoy.

The Sacrifice Poles remind me of the times I did battle with my father's Selmer sax. While it's definitely a unique sound in the house, its power is opaque as it forces me to interact with it. As the Poles sift through mechanized bits of their own minds, it’s de rigueur that I interface with their blended sounds as well, eventually coming to my own musical conclusions. Perhaps this is true interactive entertainment.