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Outstanding Balance

by Careers In Science

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1.
Go Go Robo! We built his body from steel We made his brain from a wheel We gave him weapons for days We quickly drafted the plans Put all our faith in his hands We knew the spiders would pay We thought he’d solve our problems But we were wrong, we were wrong, we were wrong, we were wrong We turned him on at 4 pm 'Cuz we had a late night and we were kinda tired He doesn’t look too impressed A red light on in his chest I think he’s headed our way He is a robot possessed How could we ever have guessed He’s start to fire our way Oh no, Giant Robo! The robot stomps through the street There’s no escaping his feet He starts to fire our way Oh no, Giant Robo! There are no easy answers. We were just cowards and then Now we are cowards again He’s got us hiding alone We were just cowards and then Now we are cowards again He’s got us hiding alone
2.
Worry Duty 02:02
My nervous ticks are tickin I Got itchy knees and runny eyes My chest is tight I heard you sigh Don't wanna be left behind What kills me Doesn't make me stronger Just let me have it A little longer My worry, I’m one of them, I’m one of them. I say I’m my friend, but I’m one of them, one of them. What guards me Doesn't make me safer Just let me have it Let me have it My breathing's fast, My tongue is dry My palms are sweat personified My broken head is pulling strings and telling lies Mount all your horses and ride against nothing! I can't fix I won't fix I need this all my weakness
3.
Kevin Potts 03:45
- Part 1 - I hate you Kevin Potts I know you're just a kid, it sucks You wrote this song about you I made it better without you Eat shit you Kevin Potts you suck you failed I hate your guts i changed lyrics to spite you Got words for that kid inside you You little squirt you jerk you twerp you hurt me first I hope this hurts I hate you Kevin Potts a lot I hope you got what you deserve - Part 2 - I remember driving Remember our first beers I remember comics Felt like 20 years I remember you showed me Wrestlemania 24 Camera cuts to michaels I’M Sorry I love YOU more I remember trying To build that playlist Rock Lobster, Talking Heads, The Crusher King Usznewicz. I remember everything No matter how hard I try I know you’d hate it But I have to let this die - Part 3 - I miss you Kevin Potts I know my tone is changing but Do you ask me how I’ve been could you remember when I lost you Kevin Potts I know my tone is changing but Can you imagine how I’ve been could you remember when I trusted Kevin Potts I know my tone is changing but How could you fathom how I’ve been could you remember when - Part 4 - Who do you think you are You ripped out our hearts Wrote us this song and tore us apart I know sorrow and I know pain I feel grateful and start again Who do you think you are Who do you think I am Who do you think you are Who do you think I am We take care of our own We take care of our own We take care of our own We take care of our own

about

Welcome to OUTSTANDING BALANCE, an EP of the last three songs Careers in Science wrote before we stopped playing shows in 2013.

We owed you these songs. We owed them to ourselves, to be honest. Also we really wanted to go out on a pun, and on this album cover. Frankly, I think we nailed it.

We were never trying to "make it." We toured, we played shows regularly, we put out records, but it was never our goal to be the biggest band ever. We wanted to play music with our friends. When we played what turned out to be our final show (which WAS actually Bathurst's final show) it wasn't that we actively broke up, we just chose to hang out and be friends instead.

It wasn't easy peasy though. We pushed ourselves incredibly hard to write more songs like this, and it hit a point where it wasn't fun to do that anymore. Callum left the band, Matthew had switched to guitar, we'd brought Pod from Deforesters on bass, and this thing that was supposed to be "four grown men giving up on being adored" became laden with pressure to continue playing shows and write more complex music, both of which were kind of in violation of, you know, the whole Careers In Science experience. So we stopped. Never really announced anything. Despite the efforts of Art Drug records to encourage us to sell and tour Cowards, it wasn't enjoyable to do it without each other. Then, when Eric died, any thoughts of making music like this again disappeared into the ether.

But over time we started to think that man... these might be good.

When I say we wrote more complex music and it wasn't fun, I mean to say we stopped after these three. These are the pinnacle of what we were doing, the hill on which we died on, the perfect mix of bizarre song structures and surprising riffs laid on solid, unshakeable grooves. Anything after this became too hard, too weird, or just never felt right.

Years after Eric had passed we started to revisit Robo and Worry, and say that we owed it to ourselves to put them out and finish them without him. We all had jobs, different musical careers, and kids, and it was never top priority to scramble in and lay down the last couple tracks, but once we did it all clicked. When we added Kevin Potts to the mix (more about why it was excluded originally below), we had the swan song we needed.

These are the songs we wish we had played live, the anger, energy, and joy we loved writing, loved playing. These songs are fast, they're panicked, they're filled with jokes and banging riffs and they make me cry when I read them. These songs are fucking great.

We hope you love them too.

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GO GO GIANT ROBO
This was designed from the outset to be the sequel to Holy Shit! Giant Spiders! (and by extension a retconned sequel to the song Cowards and Careers In Science National Anthem, both of which are part of the expanded Giant Spiders Universe, obviously). It features that sick riff that plays when a grandfather clock chimes, (you know the one), and if you listen closely you can hear the sound of a 10-year retired hardcore vocalist Dave Proctor shout "I'm losing it" as he tries to dust it off for this absolute ripper. It's also the proud home of the first time a guitar slide has ever been used in earnest or in irony on any Careers in Science song. This recording features the only fully live drum performance, a cathartic and incredible experience to kick off the record after trying to put these arrangements back together without our drummer. If Giant Spiders was about the fear of dealing with overwhelming life decisions then Robo is about trying to come up with a fast solution to your problems that backfires. However, if Spiders is in fact just about Spiders, then Robo is in fact about a Giant Robot and there's nothing to see here.

WORRY DUTY
Finally, Careers in Science writes a song about anxiety! Up until about a week before this record came out the song was called "Sex, Lies, Allergies" (obviously pronounced Aller-gize). Originally, it was a cheeky, kind of ignorant song about a character who takes overwhelming pride in his own allergies, but like everything on this record the things that mattered most to us changed over the course of 10 years. So the lyrics got a little bit of a rewrite to reflect the broad but very specific feelings of a live-off-the-floor panic attack. Since anxiety can sometimes feel like a personal battle, the co-opting of the lyrics of "My War" was a hilarious and necessary addition during recording (except replacing Henry Rollins' "You" with the much more realistic "I") and gave us a chance to show off the fiercest gang vocals on this record. Musically, the song features swirling back and forth string bends and the biggest genre-departure we'd ever experimented with, a full on viking metal breakdown leading into the song's complete deterioration. The rallying cry "Mount all your horses and ride against nothing" is the ultimate indictment of this anxiety -- if I'm getting this worked up, I better be going to war, you know?

KEVIN POTTS
Alright. While we pushed ourselves in 2013 to write more and more complex songs, songs with more parts, songs with weirder riffs and stranger concepts, we got closer and closer to the breaking point. While a lot of those songs didn't make it here, it's important to note that this was the song that pushed us to the edge. This was the one that made us take a break. Conceived as a song of movements, of parts, of rotating melodies, and conceptualized around a fictional kid who gets bullied and then, well we couldn't figure out what exactly his story was before it was more fun to stop being a band.

Flash forward a little under ten years and we're putting together the two songs that would make up this album, and going through some other old material, and it was quite clear this song fucking ruled. It was necessary that we dared ourselves into recording it. The way the guitar and bass ring out and bounce back into the opening riffs, the crooning, highway-to-the-desert bassline in part 2, the key change, the stacked sound of a million guitars tearing away at the ending, it was all too good not to do. But who the hell was this kid Kevin Potts?

It was Eric's idea to write a song about a 10 year old kid who was bullied, who was hurt, and who people mourned, and it is haunting to me now how much that overlapped with his actual experience. But in trying to sit down and do his original idea justice, I couldn't help but be in conversation with him, his death, and found myself confronting this kid Kevin Potts that broke up our band. I had to get mad at the kid. But those feelings of anger are inseparable from the feelings of sadness, and of pure fucking joy that make up a relationship with another person. It's everything, so this song ventures to be everything.

So what remains is the back and forth between each of these, anger, love, joy, and a song that intentionally does not resolve to a place of peace. Left with a song, torn apart, and miraculously put back together again, we scream defiantly at the ten year kid that dared step between us to remind him that we four take care of our own.

---

Careers In Science were a band formed in 2009, one that bookended their recorded music career with two songs named after people -- Elizabeth Brown and Kevin Potts. This band has been an invincible Voltron of dumb jokes made by goofs that will make music together forever, even if its not just as this band. That's it for now, Mister and Miss School-age America. Consider our outstanding balance paid.

credits

released July 10, 2023

Guitar by Callum McPhee
Bass by Matthew Winkler
Vocals and Lyrics by Dave Proctor
Backup Vocals by Callum McPhee and Matthew Winkler
Drum arrangements by Eric Bourque
Drum performance on "Go Go Giant Robo" by Matthew Winkler
Drum Programming on "Worry Duty" and "Kevin Potts" by Callum McPhee

Lyrics to "My War" by Black Flag as parodied on Worry Duty have been used without permission or respect.

Album art graphic design by Mike Meehan
Photo by someone on tour in 2011
Model unknown

Mixed by Callum McPhee
Mastered by Kevin McPhee

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about

Careers In Science Toronto, Ontario

We used to be a nerdy post-punk band making songs about giant spiders and mega man and the local news.

We are TECHNICALLY still that, just older.

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