Review Summary: "Overseen" is an excellent effort from Gelatinus Cube, an independent psychedelic rock band which draws a great deal from groups such as Pink Floyd, Radiohead, The Smashing Pumpkins and Van der Graaf Generator
Gelatinus Cube is a band with a long (well, four year) history of reinventing their musical style. Starting out as an admittedly crappy middle school band, they embraced the punk and ska music scene and released several EPs and albums, many of which have been disavowed by memebers of the band. For instance, lead singer and founding member Pat Chase doesn't even own copies of "Orange," Gelatinus Cube's first album.
However, G-Cube seems to have fallen into a new level of musical maturity with "Overseen by Computers with Tender Loving Care." They have forsaken their roots and moved into the realm of psychedelic and progressive rock. For example, the stripped-down sound of the band's previous album ("Gelanarchy") has been replaced by more complex song structure and more introspective lyrics. However, the heaviness is still there, especially on tracks like "Escape to Dzadagad" and "White Noise."
On the other end of the spectrum, the band shows their delicate side on slower, quieter numbers such as the ballads "If I Go Too Soon" and "Margot." The band also makes use of some new technology, most notably the keyboards and guitar effects uncommon to earlier endeavors. Saxophonist Sean "Lister" Castanean makes appears on this album not only playing his horn (listen to the intro to "White Noise"), but also playing rhythm guitar and e-bow (heard in the intro to "Alone on Olympus Mons").
This album is also the first to feature guest musicians. Making an appearance is ex-member Tim (Commander Poopy Pantalones) Swanson, who sings lead vocals on the fan favorite "Serial Killer," a song which he cowrote before he left Gelatinus Cube to play euphonium in the Cleveland Ska band Free Sample Tuesday.
While it is a good album, there are a few small flaws. The main one is the akward timing during the otherwise beautiful song "Tonight," most noticeable in the transition from verse to chorus. However, the flaws thankfully fail to detract to much from this otherwise excellent musical work.
