Last night I wrote about a computer coming to life. Tonight, I'm here to tell you about a computer taking a life. Rather, all lives. Or, at least the human ones. "Killobytes" is the first track off of Nuclear Bubble Wrap's Problem Attic and unspools a silicon yarn about an AI making the executive decision to exterminate humanity to alleviate their threat to environmental equilibrium and technological progress. It sounds grim, but it's really not. It has the plotting of a Bender-focused Futurama episode with nods to Kraftwerk and Lemon Demon's "When Robots Attack" spritzed in at the joints to oil the gears. It's silly, sure, but this doesn't count against it. It's also highly eclectic and seriously good.
Problem Attic contains many similar wags of woe and whimsy, offering a vantage point on some alien oddities that are, in reality, less foreign than we'd like them to be. The endless, panopticon-like play-pen of the internet is suitably modeled as a collapsing mall and consumer ouroboros on the desolate, vapor-huffing march of "Eternal Shopping Mall." Later the boredom, anxiety, and intransigence of youth is shown to extend endlessly into adulthood on the heady carnival of ruin that is "Problem Attic," as abrasive synthy evasions and obtuse guitars ping off of brassy backing tones as a bell tolls as if to mark the dimming of the glimmer behind one's once hopeful gaze. And then there is the rallying stomp of "Piggy Bastards" where coy synth riffs corkscrew-like pigs tails ripe for snipping and whose smokey guitars heat up an anti-authoritarian fervor over which to cook street-level enforcers of state violence and authority- a vital fury that stacks hooks like ham hocks in a butcher's display accompanied by triumphant trumpet's tap in the outro.
Problem Attic may seem heavy at times but Nuclear Bubble Wrap are adept at injecting levity into their truly dire depictions of reality- often bordering on the absurd. But delivering bad news with a smile isn't really the point of Problem Attic. In fact, inducing big, dumb goofy grins is the album's raison d'etre: chuckling about how T-Rexs would make good Catholics due to the difficulty they'd have masturbating on the Electric Six-ish deviation "Intelligent Design;" giggling through a prancing peevish parable about pansexual sex deities to an outlandish cabaret canter and Iggy Pop-esque New Values swing on "Pansexual Pantheist;" and hitching a ride on soberly romantic oversized guitars and atmospheric hooks on "The Leading Cause of Death," epic arrangments that resembles U2's The Edge strumming out his version of a Muse's Absolution, are all pit stops you will make on the band's magical mystery tour of musical mischief.
Despite its clearly ambitious structure and presentation, Problem Attic is a taught and incredibly dense progressive rock album that manages to feel lith despite its sometimes weighty subject matter due to a gregarious helping of madcap humor. It will either get your laughing and your toes tapping, or put you in a mental ward. Either way, you should be thankful to Nuclear Bubble Wrap for helping you break out of whatever routine (Read: rut) you've found yourself sliding into. The only antidote for the ordinary is the extraordinary.
