Even though Cable has been around for more than fifteen years, the band has always existed on the periphery of underground metal/hardcore and never really found a larger audience outside of the New England area. Alot of that has to do with all of the lineup changes and band turmoil that Cable has endured throughout their existence, and that they were never much of a touring band never helped either. I've always thought that if Cable had toured more frequently, eventually they would have become huge, that their sound was a couple of years ahead of its time and that kids eventually would have gone apeshit for these guys. Maybe. Cable have mostly been relegated to a footnote in the evolution of metallic hardcore, though, and if you go back to their earliest releases on Doghouse and Atomic Action, you'll hear the band chewing their way through a seminal brand of chaotic, metal-glazed hardcore that would have an influence on the development of the mathy, metallic sound of the late 90's and bands like Isis and Botch. My favorite era of the band comes later, though. Starting with their albums on Hydra Head, Cable begain to evolve into a much heavier, sludgier beast that drew from the New Orleans sludge metal sound of Eyehategod and Buzzoven, noise rock, and whiskey-soaked blues and country, a feedback-soaked behemoth of massive downtuned riffing and winding dramatic riffage that sounds like a down and out, backwoods mixture of Isis and southern swamp sludge.

Like the title suggests, Last Call was supposed to be the final nail in the coffin for the long running Connecticut band Cable, a collection of previously unreleased tracks, live material, early recordings (many of which have been out of print for years) as well as some post-Y2K material thrown in to give you the big picture of the road that these guys have been travelling down since the early 1990s, combined with a DVD that features both a documentary on the band as well as a show from CBGB's right before the band called it quits. The audio disc in this collection tracks Cable from their beginnings as one of the first bands to combine chaotic metal stylings with the urgency and raw energy of hardcore, to their evolution into a much heavier, sludgier sound that drew inspiration from Eyehategod and noise rock but emerged as an epic, feedback-soaked behemoth all of it's own. Songs from all of their albums are included here, as well as five professionally recorded tracks from the CBGB's show, and the tracks are presented in reverse chronology so you hear Cable moving backwards from their newer, sludgy jams to the frenzied discordance of their first album from 1996. The DVD half of this set is nicely put together, with the Last Call documentary featuring loads of interview footage with former members (including Jeff Caxide from Isis, who played in Cable for three years, plus show promoters and other folks from the New England hardcore scene), live footage, anecdotes dealing with drunken chaos pepetrated by members of the band, and loads more. This documentary is almost an hour long and is a cool retrospective of the band that goes over their entire existence. The other half of the DVD is the complete set from CBGB's, and it's a well-shot performance with multiple camera angles, loud audio, and the band swingin' heavily. It's the DVD material that longtime Cable fans will mostly be interested in, especially if you already own all of their older albums, but if you are new to Cable, Last Call is an excellent primer on this influential band. Comes with a booklet that includes detailed track info and DVD liner notes.