Goes Cube

Another Day Has Passed (The End)
by Craig Regala

I just got this one and have run through it once in the car and a couple times in the house, and here’s a quick and dirty about a record I like pretty much. I heard a track on the Decibel‘s Record Store Day comp. thing, and it stands aside from the rest of that extreme metal disc. I wouldn’t throw any sort of metal hyphen at’m as opposed to a hammering hard alt. rooted band (i.e. “rock”) that use a buncha moves the metal hordes have in their kit bag too. Hey, three piece bands are great: You can do whatever you want in the studio, but if you play live and it works. It’s fucking welded together and magical. If not, there’s nowhere to hide. I’ll manage to see these guys sometime, even if I have to drive nine hours to see’m at the Trash Bar in Brooklyn. Well, as long as they play with Mighty High, if those jokesters aren’t pushing towards stadiums after the new single comes out.

Firstly, the tunes are the focus, and they’ve got some good ones. The galloping romp of the first cut, “Blues Sky,” flashes enough ker-chugga and guitar hum to hang in there with Saviors, and the next has a nice, plainly-hollered vocal “indie” bands like, say, Fugazi and Squirrelbait used in the ’80s cuz, well, that’s what they sounded like when they hollered.

“Saab Sonnet” may be in the great rock and roll tradition of “car” songs, but the pretty/pensive music (if not the vocal roll into a bit of yelling ) is closer to Chokebore or Bailterspace than “metal.” Which is just fine. They amp up at least half the record Torche-ward and have rhythmic inner play you could fine humming around in Page “Helmet” Hamilton’s brain when he was A) in Band of Susans, and B) producing Totimoshi. “Goes Cube Song 30” moves like a Karma To Burn or Hackman tune, essentially abstracting the warm groove of the rockier Sabbath riffs and hammering’m out without the overt thematic doom element or fancy arrangements (…er, uh, well…). Hell, someone here probably has a Slint LP or two on the shelf.

Once again, there are “metal” moves pulled, say, “Clenching Jaws,” as a consequence of “metal” extending the hard rock language the past 25 years to the point where it’s just that: Double bass an’ all. Gotta say, there’s also a goodly amount of warm “big-foot” moves we find among stoner-rock units, if not the same vocal approach and different thematic concerns. Hey, I don’t part with $13.99 (an’ tax!) on the strength of one tune often, but I’m glad I did. Shake and stir with Helmet, Red Fang, Torche, Die Kreuzen, Floor, PB Army, Kepone, and Hüsker Dü.
(www.theendrecords.com)