Music Review: Kubik, The Empty Space
Indie, Earthy, and Otherworldly Sound
Kubik’s latest album, The Empty Space, is a great album for when you need an earthy but otherworldly sound that just keeps going. The primary sounds of the album are a deep and primal bass which contrasts beautifully with ethereal vocals. The mixing is in the vein of sludge metal, with a focus on lower frequencies and decadent, tinkling melodies. Several songs start with throbbing bass notes, then drop into a quieter steady rhythm to let the melody emerge from the depths. The lyrics are often very quiet and difficult to discern, which lends the album a consistently eerie, ghostly vibe.
The Empty Space’s title establishes the album as atmospheric, auditory limbic space. As the album progresses, the tone shifts gradually from feeling like a fuzzy black-and-white photograph of snowy woods to feeling like the sticky exhaustion at the end of a late-night concert. There’s a nice range of sounds, and fans of Hybrid, Myrkur, Hellbender, and/or Apocalyptica are likely to enjoy this album.
Album lyrics explore various facets of vulnerability from death, abuse, addiction, and conflicts between feelings and systems. Often written in a first- and second-person perspective, the lyrics match the song titles and the liminal sound well.
“Fever Dream” is delightfully trippy, a genuine homage to astral projection, lucid dreaming, and out-of-body trips. “Trapped in a nightmare/ Is anybody out there” and “I can’t wake up” are familiar thoughts in a very stoner-metal sound.
“Jesse James” has my favourite melody line in the intro, outro, and chorus. It talks about facing fears of addiction and death by getting to the point of self-loathing where you start to come back up for air. It’s both haunting and hopeful.
“I.AM.NOT.A.ROBOT” has a steady, accusatory bass with some nice drum and headbanger moments. The lyrics are a fascinating exploration of name-calling and the Us vs. Them dynamic that comes from living in a toxic patriarchy.
“You Lie/I Lie” has a nice auditory transition from the previous song to the overall album’s earthy vibe and has some great lyrics like “mirror stained with the breath of someone else” and “we move like strangers”.
The final track, “Asylum,” has a particularly haunting, urgent bass and vocal combination that seems like it just keeps going. The tone is similar to “Fever Dream” but the lyrics hearken to the romantic/toxic desire to immerse yourself in someone else, as found in earlier songs “Inside Your Skin” and “Paralysis.”
The Empty Space is available now on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, and Tidal.
Find more of The Artist Kubik’s work on their website, theartistkubik.com, as well as on Instagram and Facebook.
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Freyja T. Catton is a writer, artist, and researcher based in Alberta, Canada. More of their work is available at Wordeater News or on their website, https://thewordeater.com.