Tub Ring "Zoo Hypothesis"

As a music writer, it's not uncommon for you to get bored. You'll get into a rut, and music just kind of blurs together. Okay, this band sounds like Sebadoh. That band sounds like a bad ripoff of Green Day and Mr. T Experience. Blah blah blah blah blah, it gets annoying, it gets frustrating, it gets depressing, it gets uninspiring. So, yeah, I get bored with music, with music writing and with the same old crapola sound with a different cover and a different label, and when I get a record that totally hushes my mouth and makes me struggle with what to say, I really appreciate it, because it's a challenge, you know? (That's also why I was extremely pissed when someone stole my copy of their previous album Fermi Paradox before I could review it.)

I can't properly describe Tub Ring's sound, so I'm just gonna give you the notes: Tripping Daisy meets Faith No More meets Mister Bungle meets Nomeansno meets Brainiac meets the Butthole Surfers meets everything that's good about being bad and weird and everything that's weird about being poppy and sweet and pretty and they never sit still when they make the music that they make and that they've been making music since the early 1990s with nobody listening to them makes them even more magical and special and sexy and good and pretty and nice and weird and I get really happy when I listen to Zoo Hypothesis because it's a record that will make you get happy because when you're happy you're smiling and when you're smiling you're thinking and this record doesn't want you to think too much because it wants you to enjoy the experience of listening to it and when you listen you'll be thinking when you didn't know you were.

I can't--no, wait, scratch that---I WON'T tell you any more about this record, because I would be revealing secrets and sides to and double-takes that you'll discover and I wouldn't want to ruin the pure joy that comes along with listening to Zoo Hypothesis. All I can say is that this album is one of the most breathlessly relentlessly pleasant and loudest and unexpected records you'll hear all year, and this little beauty pill is going straight into my top ten list this year. Does this review sound like lazy journalism on my part? Perhaps, but I'm cashing in the credibility you have when you read a review of mine and think 'wow, Joseph loves that record, let's see if he's right,' because I am TOTALLY right about Tub Ring and you have no other recourse but to break down and check it for yourself, and I'm saying nothing more about it, because I want you to listen to it. You'll have fun listening to it, I promise you that.

--Joseph Kyle

Artist Website: http://www.tubring.com
Label Website: http://www.undergroundinc.com