Goes Cube--Another Day Has Passed

I've been taking the train to work for the last month or so.  I actually kind of enjoy it, provided that the weather isn't too cold during the walk over there.  I'm not a cold weather person; where I grew up was freezing cold if it got into the 30's, and Austin this year has annihilated my understanding of what cold weather actually is.  It sucked.  I'm just lucky that it didn't snow too much; with enough snow, there's a high likelyhood that I'd walk out to my car to get a work shirt or something and they'd find my perfectly-preserved frozen corpse five feet from my front door once the thaw came.  I'm helpless against the cold; like a monkey flinging his feces at a group of laser wielding stormtroopers, my many attempts to deal with the cold proved unsuccessful and even ludicrous.

But the summer is coming, and I'll finally be back to sweating all day and stinking like a dead body as a result.

So anyway, I walked over to the train earlier this week.  It was a nice day, but largely unremarkable.  I dodged the Mopac hobo successfully and made it to the train station with plenty of time to spare.  I was listening to the debut full length from Goes Cube on the way to the station, and my iPod died on the walk over.  As I was standing on the platform waiting for the train to come, I beheld a sight that nearly caused me to turn and run, train be damned.  It was a school bus, full of kids, coming to take a field trip to check out our fledgling public transportation option.  Which, by the way, is a really lame sort of field trip to take.

Now, I'm not going to lie to you.  I'm afraid of kids.  For one thing, they always remind me of my former self, the seventh grade Monsoon Cobra walking around, loudly announcing the dumbest possible shit.  If I ever came through some kind of wormhole/timewarp and came across myself at the age of 12 or 13, I can guarantee that I would not be able to stop beating up my past self.  Every time my 13 year old self would open his mouth, I'd have to slap him like a bitch.  And being reminded of my former self is unpleasant.  For another thing, I watch a lot of Law and Order: SVU.  I know that when those kids are hanging around at the train station asking me what that thing on my head is (it's a hat, retard) and riding their razor scooter, I have to ignore them and move away.  Because if those kids get abducted (and according to Law and Order: SVU they all inevitably do), mom and dad are going to remember the dude at the train station and I'll be in trouble.  Then you have to convince the police that walking through the green belt behind your apartment complex was for fun and not to bury a tiny body, and they never believe that (also according to Law and Order: SVU).

So today I secluded myself from the children as best I could and kept my headphones on my ears as a discouragement for any of them to try and speak to me for any reason.  I idly listened to their stupid questions and watched them wear their crappy technicolor hooded sweatshirts until the train finally came.  We got on and the place was obviously in disarray because of the gaggle of squawking middle schoolers all collectively refused to shut the fuck up and sit down, but then I heard something amazing.  One of the chaperones was behind me, and one of the kids announced (in typical way-too-loud-for-the-circumstances fashion) "I want to go sit up there with my friends!" to which the chaperone replied (just as loudly as the kid's pronouncement, mind you) "YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS!"

It was awesome.

So now, I associate Goes Cube with that time spent on the train, and the kid who got shamed by the bearded man sent to ensure that they wouldn't get crushed by the train or stolen by the weirdo who takes said train to work.

Goes Cube is a very good band with a very strange name; they exist in that nebulous outerworld of metal that, until just recently (for me), only Burst and Bison B.C. inhabited.  They generally play slow- to mid-tempo heavy music with shouty vokills and lots of watery, wobbly clean interludes sprinkled throughout.  Unlike most bands that attempt the watery clean interlude, bands in this category inexplicably tend to be able to pull it off without damaging the song in any way (I suspect it's the hard-to-pin-down nature of the music that allows such flexibility; however, if a progressive death metal band attempted the same thing, the resulting product would suck super hard).  The riffs are tasty and the licks are hot, but Goes Cube tends to eschew the mathy nature of Burst in favor of a more straightforward sludge-oriented approach.  Myriad forays into Isis territory lend the music an interesting dynamic, where the riffs are serenely heavy and hypnotizing (though sometimes too long).  My favorite part of any music is the fast part, and though Goes Cube uses this songwriting mechanic relatively sparingly, when it hits it works wonders.  It's really no wonder that when this album first dropped about two years ago, Decibel magazine was all atwitter over it.

If you're in the mood for some metal the defies easy classification, you should follow your nose and check out the album.  I think Goes Cube is going to be around for SXSW, so if they are I'ma go see them live and try to make it up to them that I stole their album from the Interbung.  And that's when things get awkward, I try to make them my friends, and they duck into the crowd, reminding me that I need to sharpen up my social skills for when I meet new people.

But I'd rather be playing video games.