review by Chance Solem-Pfeifer and Jacob Zlomke | words by Jacob Zlomke | photos by Andrew Dickinson

For anyone that’s seen a Universe Contest performance, moments both familiar and foreign abound on the band’s recent album We are the Rattlesnake.

The listener may find themselves absentmindedly singing along with anthemic live-show standbys like “The Day the Earth Took Pills” and “Remember,” which have been in Universe Contest’s live catalogue for a year, if not more. Pumping drums and heavy-lifting synthesizers won’t be a surprise.

But there’s another side to Universe Contest apparent on We are the Rattlesnake that’s harder to catch during the live performances wrapped in whirlpools of sound and boiling lights. The album is littered with surprisingly intimate, almost quiet instances.

Abnormal song structure becomes apparent. While “Pills” builds like familiar pop songs, songs like “Doo Without Papers” and “The Question Part II: Lousy Dreams” are split more into two movements with a bridge in the middle of the song. When Tim Carr sings on the record, half-shouting-half-yelping, he’s heartwarmingly earnest and John Friedel’s synthesizer work is given the room it deserves to breathe.

As an album, We are the Rattlesnake operates as a collection of songs, one intro and 8 individual tracks that each stand as well apart from the others as they do in any kind of sequence. Save for the album’s closer “Remember,” which serves as a final rallying cry, track order doesn’t seem to matter much here beyond staggering tracks on which Joe Humpal and Tim Carr trade lead vocal duties.

The common musical threads and themes that bond these songs, that make them worth appearance on an album together appear in equal measure on most songs in Universe Contest’s catalogue. This is less an album driven by a cohesive vision for the larger picture the individual tracks paint together, and more an offering of the best of what the band has cooked up over the last couple of years.

Overall, it’s an album that shows a side of Universe Contest not interested exclusively in explosive live shows, but also in releasing well-worked and intricate recordings.

See photos below from Universe Contest’s show this past weekend at Vega in Lincoln and The Sydney in Omaha.

Jacob Zlomke is Hear Nebraska’s staff writer. Andrew Dickinson is a Hear Nebraska contributor. Chance Solem-Pfeifer is Hear Nebraska’s managing editor. Reach them all through Chance at chancesp@hearnebraska.org.