Self Destruct Button’s new album, Juice Tiger, is pure Cleveland progressive rock. It is closer to Mastodon than The Mars Volta, but fortunately refrains from the over-indulgent omphaloskepsis that those bands are known for. More melodic and less menacing than 2006’s Natural Selection of Accidents, the songs on Juice Tiger have a vigor and cunning that well merits the album’s title.
Where it might take Mastodon or The Mars Volta 10 to 15 minutes to make their point, Self Destruct Button usually gets it done in around 2 1/2. We’re talking bunker-busters here instead of carpet bombs. This decision allows SDB to impart an agency to their music that extends beyond the band itself. Instead of imagining transcension, the songs on Juice Tiger just go ahead and transcend the motherfucker already.
The album clocks in at just under 25 minutes; the first 15 are a hardscrabble reminiscent of Stan Brakhage’s Dog Star Man Part 1 (and obviously crafted with the same innate eye for detail that Brakhage exhibits). But ‘Justwestern’ reevaluates this effort in a moment of satori that defines the listening experience for the rest of the album. The point is that enlightenment isn’t something you sit around and think about, it’s something you hunt, tooth and nail. Fleeting. (Like the album itself, which, thankfully, you can always listen to again).
Juice Tiger will be released in September and will be available at discriminating music stores all around Cleveland. Keep an eye out.
