Tar Bucket Explodes with Full Force on New Album ‘Human Nature’

Tar Bucket at Area 54 (Photo by Brandon Finnegan)

Tar Bucket’s Anthony Tanevski said he didn’t go about fixing any theme to the band’s first full-length album. But as he listened to it, he realized each song talked about “struggle, self-destruction and people being terrible to each other.”

“It just immediately clicked in my head,” Tanevski said. “This is ‘Human Nature.’”

Tar Bucket is a two-piece band comprised of drummer Tony P. Worrell and Tanevski on vocals and guitar. For a short time, there was another guitarist and vocalist, a founding member who left for personal reasons, as well as a bassist, but that was short lived. The two remaining members then took Worrell’s love of sludge metal and Tanevski’s love of death metal and “put it in a blender.”

And they liked what they heard.

‘Human Nature’ hits a dopamine center with a dark, droney feel that permeates the 12-track album, a tone that Tanevski said was very intentional. Though the band had come a long way with its sound playing live, it circled back to its beginnings on the new album.  

“I went through the old, original videos of us recording our first song ‘Dismal’ and I heard that tone and I immediately knew that was it,” Tanevski said. “I had to make that sound happen again.”

The five tracks off the band’s first EP, ‘Futile Existence,’ were re-recorded for the album at Rotten Metal Recording by Joe Leising, who also did the production for the rest of ‘Human Nature.’ But it would be a grave mistake to think of the new LP as merely a longer repeat of the band’s first EP. Besides the new material, the re-recorded tracks have a greater sense of depth, a byproduct of significantly better recording as well as different equipment.

“We wanted to be recorded in a more professional form instead of just doing it on a Mixcraft 7 with an electronic drum set I was personally playing on,” Worrell said.

While many of the songs on ‘Human Nature’ are three years old and have been replayed constantly, the album’s new songs were written over the course of several weeks.

“Some of our songs are based on real shit, some are just for fun or just to be cool,” Tanevski said. “Like ‘Grotesque Reprisal.’ That one is about a mutant escaping from experimentation and then he gets killed. His blood leaks into the sewers and makes this monster. That type of shit. Cool and fun.

“Then there’s ‘Ruminate.’ That one’s just about being alone and thinking of all your problems at once and all the things you’ve ever done. It varies from heavy to lighter toned, I guess.”

Tar Bucket at Milkie's (photo by Billie Page)

Tanevski said he’s largely intuitive about what he writes for lyrics, basing it around whatever sounds right when he plays a riff over and over.

“Usually, I don’t hear the words first. I hear the general way I want it to feel or sound, if that makes sense,” he said. “Then I just keep playing it until I find the words. It’s whatever I’m feeling or whatever I’m thinking about, and I’ll just say them. If it’s cool, it’s cool. Then I write them down. As far as riffs go, those can be hit or miss. Some days we’ll come in just inspired, I guess, and I’ll have a riff ready, and it’ll be like ‘this is the song. Beginning to end. This is the whole thing.’”

Plans for Tar Bucket in the immediate future include playing a few local shows and writing new material.

“Hopefully we get to play more regional shows,” Worrell said, noting there is some talk about playing in Rochester. “Once it gets hook, line and sinker, then we’ll do that one as our first regional show outside of Buffalo.”

‘Human Nature’ can be heard in its entirety HERE. You can also follow Tar Bucket on Bandcamp HERE and at its Instagram page, as well as on YouTube.

Asked how the band feels now that the album has been completed and released into the world, Tanevski didn’t have to think twice before answering.

“Relieved!” he said. “And now, time to put in the work for live shows.”