Tuber, Out of the Blue: Beyond the Desert
Posted in Reviews on October 23rd, 2017 by JJ Koczan
As part of a countrywide surge in heavy productivity in Greece taking place over, say, the last five years, instrumentalist four-piece Tuber issued their debut full-length, Desert Overcrowded, late in 2013 as the follow-up to their 2012 self-titled EP (discussed here), and with the longer release, seemed to be making a statement of individualized intent, positioning themselves outside the genre of heavy rock while at the same time being very much of the style and its influence. It was a lot to say for a band without lyrics, but as the Serres-based outfit, comprised of Nickos Gerostathos, Paris Fragkos, Yannis Gerostathos and Yannis Artzoglou, offer their second long-player, Out of the Blue, through NEDA Records, they would seem all the more to manifest the ethic that drove its predecessor while also taking a significant step forward in sound.
There is still a root within heavy rock, to be sure, but to listen to a track like “Cat Class,” which its darker guitar chug and running keyboard line, Tuber appear to have shifted into a much more progressive take on the style. Psychedelic elements remain and can be heard elsewhere in the guitar of the penultimate “Moon Rabbit,” but Out of the Blue even takes these more to a place of post-Russian Circles heavy post-rock in terms of their balance between airiness of tonal drift and underlying crunch, and thereby only provides a richer feel for the prog edge overall. It’s not an easy transition to make, and it’s not every band who could make it and still come across as fluidly as Tuber do in these six songs, but they successfully manipulate established styles to their own ends throughout, and so are able to provide an emotional crux as well as aesthetic intrigue to a piece the eight-minute “Norman.”
Crucial factors throughout Out of the Blue are tension and the keyboards. Tuber issued the album at the end of May very much in the manner of its title — it wasn’t on Bandcamp and then it was; blamo — and I’ll admit that part of my months-long delay in giving it a proper review has been down to processing their methods. I won’t claim to have a total grasp on what they’re doing — I’d just about never claim that about anyone — but there’s no question that from the opening title-track onward, the keyboards play a huge role in setting the mood and establishing the range with which the band is working overall. Synthesized beats are the first thing one hears as “Out of the Blue” begins, and though by the first minute drums and guitar have joined in and the song is soon to take off on a bit of deceptively angular riffing, it’s still the keys that have charted the course ahead.
The shortest inclusion, “Russian” (5:40), follows and is more guitar led, but retains a complex structure of its own. It doesn’t move as patiently into a drifting midsection (again, filled out by keyboards, bass and guitar in balance) like the opener before it, or hit into the same kind of payoff wash, but with a focus more on the heads-down business of riffing, Tuber offer a charge late in the song born of progressive metal à la Tool or the aforementioned Russian Circles leading into the drum start of “Cat Class” and thereby emphasizing the dynamic manner in which they’re able to play to one side or another within their sound even as they expand the parameters of where that sound can go. After “Russian,” the underlying chug of “Cat Class” seems to have a different context as opposed to being taken on its own — one rarely expects to have their mind drawn to mid-period Rammstein by a heavy rock record — but here the key element of tension emerges in the note-to-note bounce and the upbeat drumming, and once more the keyboards are essential to conveying that vibe as they complement the guitar, flesh out the arrangement, and starting at about three minutes in, make their own statement of melodicism rightly featured at the fore of the mix before the next push of thicker riffing takes hold.
“Cat Class” is a standout for bringing to mind a new wave-meets-heavy prog sensibility that’s almost definitively Tuber‘s own, but it’s still just a fraction of what they offer on Out of the Blue as “Norman” answers back with an oddly-timed start of drums and keys, letting the guitar ease its way in more gradual fashion on the album’s most subtle linear build taking place over first two-plus minutes. It’s not until about 2:45 that “Norman” takes flight, and by then the listener is duly hypnotized; an old trick as far as instrumentalist heavy is concerned, but a level of engagement on which Tuber haven’t relied before and so feeling fresh within the sphere of these cuts, and they recede no less smoothly only to mount an even more tense apex the second time around before finally crashing out and letting “Moon Rabbit” come in as an answer to “Russian” back on side A that once again puts the focus more on guitar than keys — drums and bass, as ever, the foundation on which all of this interaction is taking place, it’s worth emphasizing — but nonetheless retains a heavy post-rocking texture and patience, for which the second track ultimately had little time.
This varied and gracefully executed depth has to find resolution somewhere, and one looks immediately to closer “Luckily Dead” to provide that very thing. In following “Moon Rabbit,” which efficiently capped with what feels by the end of the song like its chorus in the sense of an instrumental hook, the finale starts with a darker, lower keyboard line and a slower drum beat, the guitar entering like a tinted mirror of “Norman” but marked out by the immediate shift in mood. “Luckily Dead” indeed sets itself to the task of paying off the tension mounted all across the record before it — whether it was written specifically for that purpose or just well placed, I couldn’t say — but the flow of the seven-plus-minute piece casts itself as yet another significant factor in what makes Out of the Blue so successful on the whole, since while Tuber clearly aren’t shooting for the same kind of raw, live feel in their recording style as many psychedelic bands, instead leaning more toward a crisp, prog-style production with Fragkos at the helm as engineer/mixer, they still retain and demonstrate a level of chemistry among themselves as players that simply can’t and shouldn’t be ignored.
It’s what allows them to foster such a multifaceted take while holding firm to their underlying sonic persona, and it’s what has allowed them to develop that sonic persona in the first place. One can only hope as they continue to move forward — which it’s safe to bet that barring disaster they will; there’s little here that shows any interest in stagnation on any level — they are able to maintain that aspect as well as to press ahead with their approach, because with Out of the Blue it has resulted in a work as distinct as it is distinguished. If Tuber found the desert too crowded for their liking, they’ve definitely moved into a space more completely to themselves.
