Cassette Review // Ubiquitous Meh! "Fecund With Love"

 

£5 //

https://ubiquitousmeh.bandcamp.com/album/fecund-with-love //

One of my first take aways from this new cassette by Ubiquitous Meh! was that it felt like bedroom pop.   This is funny because there is an entire band feel here, not just the sound of one person playing all the instruments and recording them in a bedroom, but I guess I just imagined several people in the same bedroom making this one.   Throughout this cassette you will also find a strong way of punk about it as it seems like no matter what song you're listening to there are still those CBGB undertones of punk rock.

With synth keys and bass lines I've thought about what other artists this could be compared with, past or present.   I came up with only two names and they are not very helpful.   At times, this has that trippy feel like The Doors (which I have compared Ubiquitous Meh! with before) but something about that energy with the keys reminds me of this band called The Secret Handshake who I only saw perform once, got a CD-R from and did an interview with their singer.  Their music might be impossible to track down online but I should revisit that CD-R one day.

When I listen to instrumental music I think about what artists it might sound like if there were vocals.   With this cassette, I think about what it might sound like as punk rock without the keys to see if I can get comparisons and yet I still cannot even come up with "It sounds like <insert punk band name> but with keys".  I also think about other bands with a lot of energy who have keys and the first who comes to mind is Digger- which you can find music from via Hopeless Records- but this doesn't really sound like Digger so that doesn't really help.

Perhaps my best way of describing this is by telling a tale of a similar situation I was in back in the late 1990's.   I was (and still am) in love with a band called Goldfinger and it felt like I would see them live at least once a year.  I also happened to see them with Reel Big Fish a lot of those times.   Now, if you know anything about either of those two bands you know they have similarities- they crossover, which is why they tour together a lot.   I don't remember which show it was exactly but one of their tours introduced me to Blue Meanies for the first time.  When I first heard them it was like they were using the same elements as RBF and Goldfinger but in a different way.

That's what I feel is going on here with Ubiquitous Meh!.  Through the harmony and what could be possibly described as synthwave as well, they take this sound you might have heard before- one which you might feel like you are a little too familiar with- and they put it into a blender, chop it up and serve it back to you in a way which you haven't heard before.   This is truly the definition of "This sounds a lot like, but isn't quite" and in a world with more music being created than ever before to be able to say that about an artist is really quite special.