I first saw Rubblebucket in college — they toured through Saratoga Springs at least twice while I was at Skidmore and put on the most exulted, raucous show I’d ever seen. The horn section parading through the crowd with a giant robot puppet, the whole crowd singing along to uniquely catchy songs. Everything they do strikes me that way: familiar yet foreign, and always delivered with wild energy.
Survival Sounds begins with a reverbed-out drone vocal, a warbley synth playing a simple/strange melody, and then quickly explodes with a very satisfying drum hit, into joyful horns and claps. Kalmia, the lead singer and sax player, comes in singing “leave me on the ground.” To me, the song captures the exhaustion and excitement that comes with being a human. “Please don’t shake us around” like she’s requesting a little breather from the whirl wind that is life.
If you ever need a song to lift you up when it feels like you’re going around and around, making the same mistakes, blast “Carousel Ride,” the second track, and let Kalmia compel you to “dance in the fire.” The fat, crunchy guitars invite you to head bang on the choruses, while the verses call for more of a step-touch-snap. One of my favorite moments in the whole record is on this song when Kalmia sings “oops… do do do do!” A little humor and self-awareness go a long way when you’re stuck in a cyclical bummer state.
Rubblebucket has dynamism on lock. They get all the way serious, then all the way fun. The production too, often swinging from one end of the spectrum to the other in a single song. There’s this section in the middle of “Rewind,” which is an overall funky jam, that melts into a dreamy swirly reminder that “fear is a lesson,” and then swells back into the run-through-the-streets-naked groove from the beginning.
This record has such reverence for the messy process of self-discovery, love, loss, and mortality. The giganticness of the production reflects the immensity of the concepts they cover. The horn parts get so complex and there’s so many little noises that come in to ping your ears, never to be heard from again. I think I could listen to it ten times a day for years and still hear something new every time. It’s a sound track for survival, bitter sweet reflections on the past, and courageous declarations for the future set to a beat you can let toss you from side to side until you give in and dance. From: http://www.offyourradar.com/issues/160-rubblebucket/
