3 out of 5

Label: The End

Producer: Rob Kleiner (I think)

Cute.  So two guys from Tub Ring have a band with a video game theme, and it’s totes apparent through the drum-machine backed beeps and boops plus frequent sampling of recognizable or nigh-recognizable classic 8-bit soundbytes.  Despite most of the songs taking some level of inspiration from a specific game, what keeps it from being too kitschy is that the duo don’t play it just for name dropping and, yes, maybe it’s all just for fun, but they at least commit to writing full on tracks, a couple ranking right up there with some of the best Tub Ring stuff.  However, it’s still limited in scope and does get a bit monotonous on the ears, and some of the structural stylings are definitely repeated over the course of the album.  The sound can’t be mistaken for a non-TR related group, but this is closer to their buddies in MSI than the current Tub Ring staple, though not as aggressive.  However, in terms of the electro beats being up front and relentlessly booming plus a sorta geeky white rap vibe – yes.

The songs are wicked catchy but fleeting – only a few choruses will stick in your head after the fact, mostly due to the disc sticking to one of a couple tempos (fast or slow) and a general glitch-y beat, with suspiciously familiar sounding tunes showing up after the midway point.  The songs that do land are the ones that break with the formula and reach for maybe something a little extra in the lyrics – such as the sorta’ gorgeous ‘8 Bit Lullaby,’ the sci-fi ‘The Shadow Me’ totally being a Tub Ring song, and the clever Katamari pop mash-up of ‘Roll It Up,’ where you could break these tracks away from the gamer reference and they’d still essentially work. 

Otherwise, most of its cute, vaguely referencing Space Invaders or Pitfall to bloop gamer tales of bragging rights (‘Skillz’), addiction (‘Goodbye Cruel World (of Warcraft)’), or flamerz (ugh) and cheater…z… (‘Cheap-O’).  And the deal is sealed with the throwdown title track.  It’s a fun record, but when I get into a Tub Ring mood I find it’s sort of an afterthought… which, despite the compositional skills, is how this comes across, as the side project I guess it was.