What is Bubblemath? A new branch of mathematics? A new type of computer memory? No! They are a progressive rock band from Minneapolis! And their debut CD Such Fine Particles of the Universe is a triumph, especially for a band's first album. There are many bands who can't get it together anywhere near this well on their third or fourth CD.
A lot of people didn't care for Echolyn's as the World. I'm not among these folks, I happen to love as the World, and the first impression of Bubblemath is that they sound a lot like this Echolyn album, particularly the vocal harmonies. However, this is Echolyn on amphetemines ... to call this band "energetic" is like saying a nuclear weapon is "just a really big firecracker". True, but it doesn't begin to give an impression of the magnitudes involved. Bubblemath moves quickly from one song section to the next, and just when you think you've figured out what they're about to do next, they throw you a curve ball.
In the course of the album, you'll be reminded of Dream Theater (for distorted keyboards that sound like crunching guitars and also for precision double bass drumming), Devo (for viscerally ugly synthesizer noises), early Robert Fripp (for demented guitar solos), The Sex Pistols (for punkish thrash guitar in some parts), and Frank Zappa (both for rapidly-changing snippets of music following one after the other and for lyrics that range from irreverent all the way to downright rude). There are also classically melodic keyboards and acoustic guitar parts which degenerate into chaos or conjeal themselves into shapes of strange fractal crystalline beauty. We even get a blast of Ian Andersonish flute and a pseudo-50's rock song a' la The Stray Cats ("She's No Vegetarian"). Hang on to your seats, this is a roller coaster ride through many musical styles all presented at Warp Factor 12.
Blake Albinson told me that, "What we did on the first CD is unload most of the old material from the early/mid 90's, so the next one will be much more interesting (for us anyway), and more proggy." This is hard to imagine. To me, this is what progressive rock is all about! No rehashed Genesis or Yes music here. This is all really fresh and new, in spite of brief reminders of the afore-mentioned bands. This is really all Bubblemath's own flavor of prog, and a delicious flavor it is! My highest recommendation for this release - absolutely essential! Check out some full-length songs on MP3.com [not any more ... -Ed.]. Oh, as an added bonus, Such Fine Particles of the Universe comes in very cool packaging too, an embossed and die-cut full-color glossy digipak package. These guys have thought of everything. Except their web site, which as of this writing, frankly sucks. But I'd rather have great music and a bad web site than the (all too common) reverse. -- Fred Trafton
Such Fine Particles of the Universe consists mainly of quite short songs (there are no instrumental pieces on this album). Nevertheless, this is the most complex Art-Rock album and, counting those by the performers of the other progressive genres (first of all, Fifth Element and RIO), one of the most complex albums that I've heard in the new millennium in general. Each song on Such Fine Particles of the Universe features a wide variety of the incredibly intricate instrumental and vocally instrumental parts that change each other more frequently than even kaleidoscopically (in our traditional sense of this word). Despite the continuous use of very complex stop-to-play movements and unusual odd meters, Bubblemath play and sing (which they do often in chorus!) predominantly very fast on the album. Certainly, otherwise they would not have squeezed such a large number of different themes and parts on each of the album's tracks. Which, though, is only partly true. As a matter of fact, all these are just features of the band's very own stylistics, the definition of which, in my view, should sound not differently than as a truly modern art (i.e. elitist), and more than merely hard-edged Art-Rock with elements of Prog-Metal and Symphonic Progressive. (Art is Art, and not Glam, after all! Otherwise, why not call "Art movie" a "Glam movie" just because of there is a theatrical element as well?) Yes, it is hardly possible to regard Such Fine Particles of the Universe as an album of Symphonic Art-Rock. Everything changes here so rapidly and suddenly that none of you will relax even for a second while listening to these (really) fine particles, hundreds of which whirl in the universe of this album. So, just a complex Modern Art-Rock would probably be the best definition of the style invented by this band, and Bubblemath themselves are most likely the very first Modern Art-Rock band to appear on the Progressive Rock map. There are textures of a truly innovative (Modern) Art-Rock in the music of a few of the contemporary bands, such as Echolyn, for instance. Among them however, only Saga and only once, - with their very underrated Generation 13 of 1995, - were, IMHO, really close to reach the status of the first Modern Art-Rock band. Nevertheless, there are not that little of the classic symphonic textures in the basis of music of the other of those bands that tried and try to perform Progressive that would be completely free of quite hackneyed forms of Art-Rock of the 1970's. All the songs that are present on this album were created within the framework of a unified stylistics. Certainly, the integrity of musical palette of Such Fine Particles of the Universe is the main aspect because of which it got the status of the first complete album of Modern Art-Rock (at least on these pages). Furthermore, each of the following three songs: "She's No Vegetarian", "TV Paid Off", and "Potential People" (4, 6, & 11), contain, in addition, a few of the highly original episodes where a strong Progressive sounds in the vein of an old-fashioned music, which is another novelty on this album. Certainly, there is no point in comparing the said episodes with some of the songs by Queen. Although most of the lyrics on the album are of a cynically humoresque character, I liked them. (In fact, I had a good laugh more than once while hearing and reading what these guys are singing about.)
The compositional, arranging, and performing skills of Bubblemath are simply fantastic. Of course, such a mind-blowing and non-conformist gem like their Such Fine Particles of the Universe drifts far from any commercial routes. And what is more, unlike most of the contemporary albums of Art-Rock genre, it goes against the stream of progressive mainstream. All the open-minded Prog-lovers of the world! Allow me to recommend you to get this album at any cost. Such Fine Particles of the Universe digipack CD, along with that of the second CD by Cabezas De Cera, is one of the most wonderful CD packing I’ve ever seen. -- Vitaly Menshikov
Source: http://www.gepr.net/bi.html#BUBBLEMATH