Caged AnimalsEat Their OwnReview

Escapist urges drive New Jersey native Vincent Cacchione’s self-styled "weird brand of home-recorded pop". Cacchione’s other band, Soft Black, tap gloomier indie-psych-rock veins on albums inspired by nightmares and his dad’s death, giving him plenty to escape from even before taking into account his mum’s illness (multiple sclerosis), his not-too-cheery day job (delivering oxygen tanks to sick folks), and the sweat-box hell of a Soft Black van tour with another band (Werewolves) that inspired the name Caged Animals. If he fancied taking off the heat, it’s no surprise.

No surprise either, then, that Caged Animals offer softer fruit than Soft Black. But it’s a shame that, beguiling opening salvo aside, their homemade charms limit them: ultimately, Eat Their Own lacks the full-bodied force required to communicate the sense of catharsis that Cacchione’s gunning for. It opens well with Teenagers in Heat, an opiated lullaby with a queasy, stoned, self-medicating ambience: "I want to believe that you and me will always be teenagers in heat," coos Cacchione, setting out his stall in an ingenuous falsetto plea for innocence regained.

Two bruised dream-pop palliatives follow. This Summer I’ll Make It Up to You is a new-wave-y Cali-pop chugger of the bedroom- rather than beach-based variety – and, as such, a kind of gauche kid sibling to the ‘chillwavers’. Teflon Heart is a catchy kiss-off to a cold lover, its goofy metaphors ("You’ve got a Teflon heart and nothing sticks to you / I think I want one, too") and quirk-hop rhymes reprieved by an insistent melody.

Elsewhere, though, the zonked doo-wop of The NJ Turnpike and the Air-voiced ballad Piles of $$$ sound like half-finished sketches from the small hours they were spawned in. Hazy Girls takes its opening cue from Higher Than the Sun then dissolves in its titular haze. Lacking a memorable hook, Somebody to Use bears out its theme of self-abasement, virtually erasing itself from existence. Given his hardships, it’s impossible to begrudge Cacchione the sense of release in the healing songs All the Beautiful Things in the World and Feelingz. But this solipsistic debut lacks the clout needed to pull us along for the ride.