The Suborbitals are an intense force, a stage presence to be reckoned with. But this weekend’s gig is special. The quirky darksiders are throwing a party in honor of releasing their second album, years after their first.
“We never thought it would take us 12 years to issue our second studio effort, but apparently it did,” bandleader Ryan Masters says. “It’s easy to overthink things in the studio and lose who you really are. This time I think we’ve really captured the essence of our live shows on tape for the very first time.”
These are lyrics about death, suicide, addiction and overdose, and Masters offers no apologies. “When you live the life I’ve lived, people die around you,” he says. “I’m amazed we are still together playing music in our 40s. I believe that we are all terrified of dying, and that’s where the neuroses and psychoses of our personalities come from. There is dark stuff in all of us. But by singing, playing and talking about it, maybe we can bring it to the light, and hopefully get over it.”
Their sound is stripped down and minimalist, yet the group is expressive and forward, whether doing mock pop, goth or straight-ahead jazz punk.
“I think, in many ways, our new disc Hey Oblivion is about embracing death as something sad but beautiful, and embracing failure as something even holier than success,” Masters says.
After the release of their first album, the Suborbitals spurned studio sessions. They finally returned to create a disc about “embracing failure as something even holier than success.”
Founded in 2003 at the Pacific Grove Art Center by Masters (then a Monterey County Weeklystaff writer), double bassist Heath Proskin and jazz pianist Bill Minor, their first disc was Black Out Rolling in 2006, which coincided with the group rising to local prominence via lengthy stands at Monterey Live in downtown Monterey and the Ocean Thunder biker bar on Lighthouse, both of which are now defunct.
“The early 2000s were the heyday of Monterey’s live local music scene,” Masters says. “It was very vibrant back then, and then it just kind of disappeared. We rode that wave for as long as we could.”
THE SUBORBITALS ALBUM RELEASE SHOW 7:30pm Friday June 29. The Lab, 3728 The Barnyard, Suite G-23, Carmel. $10. info@thelabarts.com, eventbrite.com.
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