Rob's Album Of The Week: Math The Band's Get Real

2012 has been one hell of a year for Providence electro-punk duo Math The Band. Doing two humungous tours all across America with party god Andrew W.K. and around the rolling hills of the United Kingdom with "Teenage Dirtbags" Wheatus, Math The Band is an excellent example of a band with boatloads of talent accomplishing amazing feats while doing it on their own terms. Speaking of amazing, Math The Band has their 10th album, Get Real, out this week and it's completely spectacular.

Guitarist, vocalist and genuine wildman Kevin Steinhauser along with percussionist, keyboardist and human fireball Justine Mainville made the album at the world famous art & music space AS220 located on Empire St. in downtown Providence, it always seems that when these two come together mind-blowing things just happen. Feverish, accelerated rhythms and emphatic beats are Math The Band's bread and butter, making you instantaneously become a one-person rampaging mosh pit right when you press play. It's always satisfying when an album comes out and it's unbelievably close to the band's live performance, when I close my eyes while I'm listening to Get Real it feels like Math The Band is playing right in my living room and upsetting my neighbors.

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- Rob Duguay

Here it comes like a ton of bricks coming down on a shack put together by blades of grass. The moment of truth, well not really. The only thing you need to know is that Get Real is definitely going to be in my Top 15 Albums of 2012 next month because every track never lets up. Electrifying music that gets you going like a wicked strong cup of coffee but in audial form. Now it's the hard part, who do I highlight? Who are the chosen few? Anyways, here goes something: "Positive Stress" is the perfect opening track, guitar riffs and drum beats that are beautifully spine-tingling. "Mission Statement" is another song that ups the ante when it comes to playing everything fast the only way Math The Band knows how, the interesting thing about this one is that it has some loud-quiet-loud progressions that reminds me of old-school punk rock and alternative bands like The Pixies and Guided By Voices. "Four To Six" is the lead single off of the album and it's a rhythmic machine gun full of epic syncopation and fury. No downbeats, no let downs, roaring explosively like a jet engine over a volcano.

Get Real is so magnificent that Math The Band had two release shows for it, one at AS220 on November 8th and another one at Death By Audio in Brooklyn this past Saturday on November 17th. Currently Math The Band is in the middle of a tour in support of Get Real where they'll be playing at Alderaan in Chicago tonight and the tour will be concluding at The Middle East in Cambridge, MA on January 20th. Until Math The Band blows the roof off of your favorite music venue, grab a copy of Get Real. It'll melt your brain into pure radioactive sludge, but in a very very good way.