Chicago has given us some great bands, from Smoking
Popes to Smashing Pumpkins. It’s also given
us some tremendously interesting bands, the latest
of which is Tub Ring, whose latest work The Great
Filter is their first for experimental hard music
label The End Records. This is the band’s fourth
album and is not only a whirlwind of sound and energy,
but also of emotion.
The most impressive thing that Tub Ring does on The
Great Filter is maintaining accessibility. The band’s
approach to music is a bit of a jumble, bringing to
mind band’s like Dillenger Escape Plan, Mr.
Bungle (Faith No More even at times), and Dog Fashion
Disco, but no matter what styles they are fusing together
there is always an underlying melody that holds on
tightly to the listener. And that’s precisely
what makes The Great Filter successful while their
contemporaries get relegated to an oddities genre.
Influences from punk, pop, mariachi, rock, reggae
and ska, and various forms of hard music are present
here, with the rock element being the most pervasive
overall. “No One Wants to Play” is an
anthemic, high energy, rocker that manages to break
into some mariachi horns, adding an entirely new dimension
(and might I say brilliance?) to the song. The horn
section pushes the song from “good” to
“great” fairly quickly. It’s so
wrong that it works, much like in Johnny Cash’s
classic “Ring of Fire.” “Friends
and Enemies” begins a bit like an SS Bountyhunter
song, with spy movie like guitars joined by an inquisitive
lonely vocal before exploding into a full blown, epic
rock song worthy of a nod from Led Zeppelin themselves.
“The Truth” has a very likeable surf-rock
element to it as well as a screamy punk edge that
reminds me a bit of Blaster the Rocketboy/Man. It’s
one of the more “out there” songs but
also one of the most intense.
Overall while this isn’t for everybody, it
certainly has more overall appeal than any of the
bands I have mentioned in this review. The music is
ever-changing and impossible to predict, while the
lyrics flop back and forth between the philosophical
and the just plain weird, offering that the band does
in fact have something to say while reminding us that
they don’t themselves super seriously. If you
are looking for something fresh and new that, for
the most part, keeps its feet on the ground musically
then you should check out Tub Ring’s The Great
Filter.
Key Tracks:
Reviewed by Mark Fisher |
