GOES CUBE

I first came across the Brooklyn-based trio GOES CUBE a couple of years ago while the band was on tour in support of their last album, "Another Day Has Passed". The band immediately grabbed me with their organic and incredibly thunderous live sound. I walked away from that show praising the band for their ability to write ridiculously heavy, well-crafted, digestible and diverse music. I also felt the album I took home with me did a good, but not great job of representing the band. They nailed it with "In Tides And Drifts".

I used the words ridiculously heavy a sentence or two ago and that's exactly how this disc starts off. A squeal of feedback, a drum roll and BAM — "Safety Coffin" plays the over-fuzzed, thrash n' groove bull to your china shop and less than two minutes later you're hooked. With a slightly longer playing time, "Thunderhead" shows just how good a band GOES CUBE is by keeping the ruthless aggression intact, but opening things up a bit with infectious riffing, clever interplay between the guitar and bass and the almighty hook. The band's ability to throw so many riffs (and good ones at that) at the listener in such a short amount of time really shines on the two-minute "Property". The energy and clock time of the three opening tunes suggest a punk aesthetic, but the music is meaty enough to leave anyone with a SABBATH or HELMET album in their collection salivating on their shirt.

"In Tides And Drifts" gets really interesting with "In The Homes Of". Guitarist David Obuchowski takes his style of riffing to the next level for a more expansive kind of heaviness before the song drops into a slower, moodier dynamic. Stepping away from his harsh screams, the frontman orates from a lower, almost chant-like register which is made downright chilling when female folk singer Jaymay steps in to lend her voice. A spine-tingling tune if there ever was one. Jaymay returns for a more sultry and upfront performance on the title track. An epic end to a great album, this tune runs the gamut from mellow to monstrous before fading into silence.

In the middle of "In Tides And Drifts" is the three part journey — "The Story Is The Story Begins", "The Story Is The Story Goes" and "The Story Is The Story Ends". Every bit as diverse and all over the map as the rest of the album, these three share a certain synergy that demands they be taken in as a whole.

Whether GOES CUBE is pounding away at the heaviest grooves this side of a Southern sludge fest, lying back in a smoke-filled spacey-jazz pocket or thrashing their collective heads off, they do a damn good job of it. What's even more beautiful about this release is that the trio of Obuchowski, drummer Kenny Appell and bassist Matt Tyson can switch gears from one extreme to the other so seamlessly you'd think that everything would sound this effortless. Tags like art-metal, post-grunge or hipstercore don't begin to describe the type of band that GOES CUBE has become. This is aggressive and emotional music written with depth, grace and style. And it's fucking brilliant above all else.