photo by Daniel Muller

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[Editor's note: This song premiere previews the release of Hear Nebraska's second compilation on vinyl. Pre-order the album via Kickstarter here. The record will be released on Friday, Dec. 27 at The Waiting Room in Omaha. RSVP here.]

by Jacob Zlomke

With a name as galactically inclusive as Universe Contest, spacey tracks thickly layered in wailing vocals and distorted guitars fit the Lincoln band’s bill.

“The Day the Earth Took Pills” is the first track off Hear Nebraska: Vol. 2 and will be featured on Universe Contest’s forthcoming album, We Are the Rattlesnake. Hear Nebraska's second compilation will be released on Friday, Dec. 27 at the Waiting Room Lounge in Omaha.

On "The Day the Earth Took Pills," Universe Contest finds itself even more comfortable with John Freidel’s mastery of strange keyboards. Here, they are less a colorful detail and more a dynamic force on which the song relies for its impact.

PRE-ORDER HEAR NEBRASKA: VOL. 2 VIA KICKSTARTER HERE

“As we work more and more with John, we more and more like what he brings to the table,” says guitarist/vocalist Joe Humpal. “As long as we can do it live on stage, it’s fun to have those sounds in the songs.”

The track’s title, a reference to Robert Wise’s 1951 science-fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still, alone is indicative of Universe Contest’s musical goals. The bit of despondent humor on a song with personal and uneasy subject matter works well for a band that regularly performs in costume and face paint.

“The Day the Earth Took Pills” builds in anthemic fashion from vocal-heavy verses into a wailing climax of driving cymbals and heavy guitars. What begins, lyrically, as anxious rumination on an unfamiliar weekend never settles into something more comfortable. Rather, the anxiety rises until it’s boiling over. The song ends less on satisfying resolution and more, amidst a chaotic storm of shrieks — part-human, part-electronic — on a force-shutdown of a system that became overloaded with the process of calculation.

from the liner notes of Hear Nebraska: Vol. 2

The track is a first glimpse at a Universe Contest record that Humpal says has been in the works for almost a year. Though a release date hasn’t been set, Humpal says they expect the album to be available this winter.

“We’re going to have it available on vinyl, then we’re also going to have as many digital formats available as we can,” Humpal says. “We want to make the songs themselves available as cheaply as possible.”

Pre-order Hear Nebraska's second compilation via Kickstarter here. Listen to "The Day the Earth Took Pills" below:

credits:

recorded by Brenton Neville and mixed by Matt Hovanec

Tim Carr (guitar, vocals), Jon Dell (bass, vocals), Joe Humpal (guitar, vocals), Brenton Neville (drums, vocals), John Freidel (keyboards, vocals)

Jacob Zlomke is Hear Nebraska’s editorial intern. His favorite pills are children’s Tylenol and Xanax. Reach him at jacobz@hearnebraska.org.