Like its predecessor,
Drake Equation,
Tub Ring's
Fermi Paradox offers outrageously intelligent narratives on science, and the fictions that motivate it, backed by dizzyingly frenetic music that often changes genre and mood several times within a single track. They do it, however, with a significantly poppier, catchier sound that should go a long way toward liberating them from the flattering but deeply overstated comparisons to
Mr. Bungle that
Drake Equation elicited from fans and critics alike. The result is a deeply intelligent album that is as powerful as it is fun. As its title suggests,
Fermi Paradox is often concerned not simply with science, but particularly with the myth of progress and the promise of a utopian future that so often motivates and supports it.
Tub Ring is clearly not a band of techno-fetishists. Citing everyone from
Shakespeare and Descartes to Asimov and the Bible, singer
Kevin Gibson offers narratives of ironic utopias and dark techno-apocalypses. On "I Am the Robot,"
Gibson sings ironically from the point of view of a robot celebrating the new age of peace his creation implies: "I carry strength but not aggression, the fear of failure gone away/The first two races in our history that can communicate!" The irony in "I Am the Robot" and "The Way to Mars" (on which
Gibson sings "All dreams and thoughts shine like stars on our way to Mars") is cunning, and is brought into stark relief by tracks like "Psychology Is B.S. (Not Science)" and "Panic the Digital," in which
Gibson's cynicism is clear: "This is my cancer from my cellular phone that emits radiation that destroys my brain."