From the makers of Cave-In: new mp3s by Clouds, Zozobra

How To Play Gay-tar: CLOUDS show off their manly fingerings.

Zozobra's Caleb Scofield: silent but deadly.

Is Cave-In dead? Well . . . maybe. More after the jump, including exclusive new mp3s from guitarist Adam McGrath's new band Clouds and bassist Caleb Scofield's new band Zozobra.

This week Jeff Breeze -- you know him from WMBR's legendary local-music show Pipeline! -- surveys guitarists Brodsky and McGrath, and while neither will say "it's over," they're certainly not making any noises about getting back together anytime soon. In fact, they're taking their new bands -- Brodsky's Octave Museum and McGrath's Clouds -- over to the UK next month. McGrath refers at one point to Cave-In as "disintegrated," and ads, "we had a great run, so if it ends with all of us being friends, I’m fine with that."

This would be devastating news if the new bands weren't any good. But they're all pretty kick ass: each surprising in a way that gives you a better understanding of how complicated their internal musical dynamic must've been. We've already told you enough about Brodsky's OCTAVE MUSEUM, which sets his singer-songwriterly solo material to a psych-metal, power-trio roar. Adam McGrath's CLOUDS might be the biggest surprise. Their Legendary Demo (produced by Brodsky, coming out next week on Hydrahead) has a pair of screaming-hardcore moments, but anyone looking for the Slayer-meets-Radiohead space-metal sound that made Cave-In famous had better set their internal hard-rock-o-meter back a couple of decades. We'll be damned if McGrath didn't jump in the studio and make a goddamn Fu Manchu record. It sounds great, with tempos keeping their woolly-mammoth guitar tones from sinking into stoner sludge; most of all, there's a ton of steel-plated lead shreddery -- Guitar Hero 3, this is your expert level right here.

Jeff also makes passing mention of the other Cave-In side project, ZOZOBRA, which comes closest (and not very) to the old band's sound. It's bassists Caleb Scofield's new band with Old Man Gloom's Santos Montano. Caleb took over Cave-In's screamy vocals when they decided to go back to playing the old shit, a la Jason Newsted in Metallica, so it's not particularly surprising to find him carrying the flag for the brooding, punch-in-the-face metal that Cave In (and Isis, for that matter) have mostly left behind. Zozobora is actually getting the biggest push of the three: they're on a US tour with ISIS that kicks off in March, with McGrath signed on to play guitar.

DOWNLOAD: Clouds, "New Amnesia" (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: Zozobra, "Kill and Crush" (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: Octave Museum, "Kid Defender" (mp3)