Worker Bee – Tangler – Album Review
When the host of releases this week center around infectious vibes and pop nuance, it’s refreshing to look a bit backward to hit the pile of albums and stumble upon a collection of tracks that sparks that slight bit of sludge so necessary in coping with the incessant onslaught of snow here inCleveland. We’re cave dwellers during the winter months. Skies are a colorless canvas of greys and dirty whites; the overcast and sprawling clouds leave very little room for sunshine and consistent happiness. This isn’t a bad thing, and I’ve often believed that those that endure consistent weather patterns must undergo mind-numbing psychosis. I love the wax and wane of weather, emotions, and music. Call it trite, but music needs to somehow align with our moods, and most certainly, the lengthy host of February album releases are not doing the trick for this particular introspective and brooding Clevelander. Ironically, Worker Bee hails from sunny San Jose, but the incredibly pliable and varietal shifting of their recently re-released debut album, Tangler is like a healthy wad of winter beef jerky. It requires contemplative effort. It’s wicked intelligent, and the spiraling and difficult-to-pinpoint sound is just the brow-furrowing fodder needed for me to chew on this month. In short, Tangler is what February is supposed to sound like. It’s unforgiving and entirely confident. Worker Bee doesn’t expect listeners’ comfort, nor does it make any excuses for faceplanting them into their sonic world.
To formulate an overriding thesis for Tangler is slippery and difficult. Largely, the entire record is about juxtaposition and the push/pull of sound and silence. The supposition that this band is blues-based is apt and accurate, probably. Maybe. Tracks like “Cold Rats” and “Nesting” are gritty son-of-a-bitches that serve as bluesy statements on the album. “Nesting” is about all about slimy grit, paired up with rhythmic cymbal crashing and angrily rapt vocal delivery. This is the slimeball music appeal folks get behind when pounding through early February tax-returns and cracking winter pavement. The entire record was recorded in the band’s house, and the inclusion of inherent recording flaws only adds to the clanking and brooding appeal of many of the songs. “Cold Rats” summates the importance of the percussion driven nature of the record. A tribal vibe erupts. Pounding drums keep time while reverbed distortion sits alongside the dissonant guitar pummeling. To begin with, the darker underbelly must be exposed to let Tangler settle in with listeners. Like a peg in a climbing wall, listeners must first assert that the aura is dark to keep from losing footing.
Besides brooding darkness as the backdrop’s ethos, Tangler is on one hand about a delicate flutter of instrumentation, but equally about the silence that’s intermingled in the bare-bones model of their sound. This sounds off, doesn’t it? How can a band be full-on sonorous but quiet and simple at the same time? It works here, trust us. “When You Came Through” weaves listeners through a simple premise. Basic muted guitar chords bop up and down and the slow burn of the song maintains listener attention. It’s more about the lack of extras in many tracks that make them so intriguing. Give Worker Bee a hand-shaker, a small drum kit, a guitar, a bass, and they can sprinkle just the right amount of sound into the silent canvas to create gold. The growling vocal delivery in “All Roads” is at near-breakdown mode, one testosterone shot short of entering into headfirst swearing epithets. Lip curling intensity and tension is created in the slow cadence that starts the track. As quickly as an entrancing rhythm is created, cymbals crash and distortion turns up for three second mini-crescendos that slide right back into the quietude quickly. You can never quite grab solid footing with Tangler, and this mixture of simplistic arrangement and loudness clashing with silence is really what it’s all about here.
On a lyrical tilt, I’ve determined that Worker Bee is purposely ambiguous. Narrative elements slide into “Frozen Game” and the aforementioned “All Roads,” but there’s never quite enough connection to make the lyrics all fit into a unified statement. Imagery is dark and cathartic. People are suffering and paths chosen don’t quite always end up where the protagonists intend. Importantly, Worker Bee’s lyrical style is inspired by personal experience. We may never know what spawned the image-cataloging of “Rough Magic” or the introspection in “Surface Eating Acid Bath,” but I don’t think the band really intends their audience to hop on board lyrically. This is an album for them and, to me, the enjoyment is playing (and replaying) the result of these dudes hammering out their emotions into their art.
Tangler is music that represents the seedy underbelly of urban landscapes. It’s for whiskey drinkers that know good whiskey. It’s a musician’s album, and slippery as hell. Importantly, Tangler is extremely cool and palatable in a whole host of ways, depending on listener angle and attention-span. One listen requires another, and this, at least for me, has been the cycle since I picked it up late last week. Do yourself a favor and pick the album up and sink your teeth in. It’s bound to give you plenty to wrap your brain around.
Leave a Reply