When we last checked in with Something To Do, the band was riding high, having recorded the music for an Adult Swim show. With the money the band earned scoring Gigglefudge USA, the state’s premier ska outfit was able to fund the recording of its next full-length. Now, months later, after the band helped us with a little video project and one member wrote a musical, that Adult Swim-funded album is finally ready to see the light of day.
Not Making A Sound, the 14-year-old project’s fourth full-length, was years in the making. Between releases, the band had two members depart amicably, they brought on two replacements, and the new cast wrote dozens of new songs. The result is 12 tracks, pared down from 24. Those that made the cut include the anthemic single “Don’t Take That Shit From Anyone,” the brassy and brash “Point Of No Return,” and two songs about Tina Fey (three others didn’t make the cut). “At one point, I had wanted the whole album to be about her, but my bandmates were savvy and smart enough to dissuade me from this foolish endeavor,” singer-bassist Nate Tredinnick says.
Between those songs, peppy jaunts like “The Lemons In Lemonade,” and loaded ska standards like “I Don’t Like You” and “Done With You & Me,” Not Making A Sound defies its name by providing a wealth of sounds that show a dash of evolution from a long-tenured act, while also giving a breath of fresh air to an ailing and endangered genre. Before Friday’s release show at Company Brewing and Saturday’s show at The Frequency in Madison, listen to Not Making A Sound in its entirety right now, only at Milwaukee Record.