Review: Empire Bathtub – 2 Looney 2 Moons

Style: comedy rock, prog rock/metal (mixed vocals)
Review by: Sam
Country: US-TX/FL
Release date: 5 March, 2021

Nepotism is a funny thing. Most serious people and organizations avoid it, or at least, make it not seem blatant when they do it. I however, have no such ambitions, because this review is nepotist AF. Empire Bathtub is a band that consists of two people who review/work for this blog: Stephen and Jonah. I always try to be honest in what I think, but I can’t lie to you and say I’m even remotely neutral. Not that I was pressured into giving it a high grade (though Stephen did ask me not to give it a 6/10 because that’s what every review of the album has done thus far), but as Stephen and Jonah are good friends of mine there’s just no way that won’t slip into my rating somewhere.

But enough about me and my definitely-not-nepotism review, let’s talk about Empire Bathtub. As you might have guessed from the band name, they are not a very serious band. Stephen told me he got the name from a random word generator, which is pretty in line with how the lyrics are. This album is the sequel to Looney Moons, which Josh reviewed in 2020. It’s part two of a trilogy of concept albums (LM3 is already in the making). The music here is driven completely by the lyrics. Apparently it’s what Stephen and Jonah spent more than half the time on while making this album, and it shows. These are some of the campiest, funniest lyrics I’ve ever come across to. I mean, you can’t argue with the smell of dick-shaped roses and 69-birds right?

The setting of the story is that a person called Boss and a sentient robot called Tars have defeated the Fuh King after a long journey through space to find the last Tool CD (it wasn’t that great), and now they can start repopulating humanity (oh yeah…). However as the power got to Tars’ head, he started to view Boss’ repopulation project as a threat to his power. Boss calls him a “stupid shit” and hits him on the head, before he delves into Tars’ mind to get him back to normal. As he got into his mind, he’s told he has to find Tars and convince him to hit the gong. On his journey, he is met with various obstacles, but eventually he succeeds and all is happy again as Boss and Tars celebrate their “real robromance.” The story is gloriously tacky and I love every second of it.

Instrumentally the album is based around groovy atmosphere and scifi synths. It’s very well done, making the album much more than just a funny audio book with background music. Big selling point is the groovy bass lines and spacy guitar leads, which can work almost hypnotic at times. Add in the scifi synths and you get some lovely background instrumentation. The potential to make a more musically driven album is there for sure. There’s a killer mix too. Every piece has room to breathe, and all the tones are lovely.

The album is very much vocally driven though, and they did a great job with it. Each character is distinct and performed really well, making the story easy to follow. Stephen’s and Jonah’s singing is very strong, and Jonah also brings some very strong demonic, ghastly harsh vocal performances a couple of times. Both of them have very soothing voices which add greatly to how hypnotic the music can be. There is also a killer guest narration in Chapter IV for the Carnival Barker done by a certain Ryan Neff from the band Left as Rain.

Still though, I can’t help but wish they put a little more focus on the songwriting from a musical standpoint. When reading along with the lyrics, the albums is very fun, but in all other instances I found myself hesitant to start playing the album as the first half is loaded with narration, making the pacing quite slow. I could have used more urgency in the instrumentation overall.

However on the whole, I would encourage any prog metal to listen to this album, if only for the laughs. The driving factor for this project – the humor – is delivered in spades. It really avoids classification, though I gotta say it oddly reminds me specifically of Fates Warning’s A Pleasant Shade of Gray at times, which I can confirm neither Stephen, nor Jonah have listened to prior to making this album (get on it!), so that’s more of a coincidence than anything. 2 Looney 2 Moons is a gem of an album for everyone who doesn’t take the whole music thing too seriously. Just, get on it already!

Recommended tracks: King TARS, Hits from the Gong, Deconstruction
Recommended for fans of: any prog metal/rock tbh, just listen to it already!
Final verdict: 42.0/69 (sorry Stephen)

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | RYM page

Label: Independent

Empire Bathtub is:
– Stephen Forristall (guitar, bass, vocals, keyboards, programming, lyrics)
– Jonah Robertson (vocals, narration, lyrics)