Review: Wombat Supernova – Apewoman VS Turbo

Style: Math rock (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: CHON, Standards, Strawberry Girls, The Aristocrats
Review by: Ian
Country: France
Release date: 22 March 2024

Since time immemorial, some of music’s greatest geniuses have also been some of its goofiest, silliest, and most immature people. From the abundant dirty jokes and canons about licking ass favored by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart all the way to three of the modern era’s most formidable virtuosos forming a group called The Aristocrats and proceeding to write concept albums about ducks featuring track titles like “This Is Not Scrotum”, dumb cringey humor and artistic brilliance have been closer bedfellows than many would like to admit. So when a pair of French weirdos with a silly name dress up as a monkey and a car and write a math-rock album with stop-motion music videos about being friends (or “FRIENDZ” as they put it) with a wombat named Bertrand, your first thought shouldn’t be “Wow, that sounds incredibly stupid, why would I bother?” It should be “Wow, these guys just might be the next Mozart!”

I kid, I kid. But only partly. See, Wombat Supernova is a project that features a familiar figure from previous Subway escapades– one Lulu de la Rosa, musical genius and prog shitposter extraordinaire who turned in a kickass guest solo on my favorite instrumental album of last year. Together with partner in crime Marsouin des Sables (who seems to be quite a multi-talented musician as well given their half-dozen other projects in various genres), they aim to create a “cute, dumb, and fast” sugar rush of a math rock album with a maximalist streak and a scrappy, DIY edge. And, judging from lead single “Bertrand”, they’ve clearly succeeded. From its joyously hyperactive introductory tapping riff to the infectious straight-outta-anime main synth melody to the hilarious anticlimax of its quote-unquote “breakdown”, this is instrumental comedy music done right– full of pisstakes and ADHD-ridden style shifts, yes, but clearly executed by individuals familiar enough with the tropes of instrumental prog to lampoon them. Not always what I’m in the mood for, but surprisingly good stuff for anyone who doesn’t hate fun.

But the thing is, dear reader, Apewoman vs. Turbo does not start with that track. No, it starts with “Cosmic Tabouleh”, a tune that, aside from maybe a brief passage of offbeat dissonance, doesn’t take nearly the same shitpost-heavy approach that “Bertrand” did. Instead, it’s just a nice, sunny, energetic slice of CHON-esque math rock, where clean guitars twirl and shimmer through shifting scales and meters with the grace of leaping dolphins at sunset. It is at this point that I begin to wonder if the silly ha-ha wombat album might just be unironically… good? “Magic Clover Quest”, for its part, isn’t just good, it’s genuinely great– a tight yet labyrinthine math-prog opus that wanders through more gorgeous clean interludes, tension-ridden buildups, and chaotic, noodly solos in the space of only five minutes. I’ve got to praise the drum programming, too; it sounds convincingly real and nails the convoluted time signatures that come part and parcel with math rock, pulling out some really fun, energetic bits of rhythmic interplay with the dueling guitar lines. 

At this point, I think I’ve figured out Wombat Supernova‘s game. They’re a Trojan horse, letting the listener’s guard down with their cute, dumb facade before socking them in the jaw with kickass musicianship. Of course, they throw in a few more goofs here and there– the lengthy “Double Cringe” has a variety of absurd genre shifts from country to jazz to a barrage of out-of-nowhere blast beats, and some melodies on “Eggs” have a distinctly clown-shoes, circusy feel. They are keenly aware, though, that the same comedic approach that’s hilarious for three minutes can be aggravating when stretched out to thirty, and so keep things constantly changing. It’s a balance that they strike remarkably well– when they’re being serious, they never forget to have fun, and when they’re being funny, they never forget to take the craft of their jokes seriously. Still, with “As Our Memories Revolved Around The Love We Lost Long Ago, They Were Standing Still In The Sunset And Never To Be Found Again”, the only joke is its ridiculously long title. It is played 100% straight, a beautiful, uplifting ballad that luxuriates in extended harmonies and more of those sweet, sweet clean guitars. One gets the sense that this track is the comic mask finally slipping– that the duo is finally sharing something genuine without the artifice of quirky irony they had been keeping up all this time. What a great way to end the album.

Except no, that’s not the end. Not really. As it turns out, the pair have one final prank to pull, and it’s called “The Nest”. To answer the question I had while listening to it– namely, “what the actual fuck is this?”– this track consists of thirty seconds of circus music, followed by a minute of dead silence, followed by five minutes of unsettling horror ambience. Now, I have many reactions to this. As a twist ending, it was definitely effective, and I’ll certainly remember the first time I heard it and thought there was some kind of error in the file. As a listening experience, it’s not something I would voluntarily go through again, and I’ll dock the album half a point for its last track not really being, uh… pleasant. But as an artistic statement, it’s fascinating. Over the course of the album, I thought I had Wombat Supernova figured out. I came to take the comedic bits as the pair putting on an act, and the more serious, complex bits as their true artistic selves, with the penultimate track as a neat, tidy bow at the end of the story arc. But this final bit of nonsense puts the lie to that way of thinking; the “serious” compositions were just as much an act as the wacky slide guitars and circus melodies. The division between the “real” and “artificial” self has only ever been a social construct; our real selves are nothing more than a set of acts, serious and silly alike, that we put on every day until one day we find they’re part of us. Or maybe they just did it for shits and giggles, I dunno.

Recommended tracks: Cosmic Tabouleh, Magic Clover Quest, As Our Memories Revolved Around The Love We Lost Long Ago, They Were Standing Still In The Sunset And Never To Be Found Again
You may also like: Invalids, Poly-Math, Feather
Final verdict: 7.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | RYM page

Label: Independent

Wombat Supernova is:
– Marsouin “Apewoman” des Sables: right guitar, bass, drum programming
– Lulu “Turbo” de la Rosa: left guitar, bass, drum programming, keyboards