New Music Review: Cut Copy-Zonoscope

Instead of cramming a bunch of albums into a month end review, I'm going back to new music reviews one at a time. I tend to procrastinate and listening to six albums in nine days was bit much in January. My old strategy: Stalk the album I want to hear, give it three proper listens, give my two cents. Bingo! or Yahtzee! or Sorry!

So let's take a look at the third full length release, "Zonoscope", from Australian synth-pop, dance-rock outfit Cut Copy, shall we. Cut Copy is a band that borrow a lot from eighties pop music, but never really feel like they are totally aping it. Their new album continues in the same vein and has a ridiculously sunny disposition to it. The best three songs on "Zonoscope" start the album with flying colors. Each is outstanding with lots of great hooks lurking around every corner. Opener "Need You Now" is bright and the keys flourish in a way that you would find on an old, let's see, Orchestral Maneuvers In The Dark song. What really ties it together is a simple chorus with lead singer Dan Whitford simply crooning "I know we're going crazy, but I need you now." Absolutely wonderful. As impressive is the second track "Take Me Over" with tribal like percussion and hooks that are reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac's "Everywhere" and very ironically close to Men At Work's "Down Under" (it's simply a flute bit away). Whitford delivers another great chorus: "Take me over, take me out, to the jungle through the night in paradise" as the keys simply make this song a peppy delight. My favorite is the third track "Where I'm Going" which skips along on a wonderful beat and is full of woos, ahhs and yeahs that are simply lush...like the Beach Boys over a big beat. "Zonoscope" has a refreshing start. Like feeling the sun after several cloudy days. It's like the start of a mix tape you found lying around from 1986 that you recorded from the local radio stations and makes you think "You know, the eighties weren't all that distasteful now were they."

So if your 1986 mix tape was front-loaded with your favorites, the rest of "Zonoscope" stays true to form with the more unforgettable tracks that helped fill out your cassette. The biggest problem is the sunny disposition stays in tact, but the hooks that were found everywhere at the beginning have....disintegrated. The first instance where things sour is on "Pharaohs and Pyramids" where the keyboards are just total overkill and remind you of the more cringe worthy characteristics of eighties synth pop ("Oh yeah, I guess the eighties were kind of distasteful.") Don't get me wrong, there are a few good ideas still left on "Zonoscope". Like the shimmering keys on "Blink and You'll Miss A Revolution" or the giddy chorus of "Hanging Onto Every Heartbeat". You've even got the, we'll call it, fifteen minute, 7" extended dance remix "Sun God" gracing the end of the album that builds nicely but is really unnecessary. As a whole, tracks 4-11 have nothing memorable to make you want to go back and listen to them again except for knowing...it's got a sunny disposition and it's upbeat. But sometimes that's simply not enough to get by. Sorry!

I wanted to kind of compare "Zonoscope" to last year's "Odd Blood" from Yeasayer, an album with a few gems littered across a minefield of mediocre dance-pop songs. But even "Odd Blood" had a current running through it that was at least filled with some, well, odd blood to keep you off guard. "Zonoscope" is too smooth and self-conscious for its own good to develop any sort of character and that's pretty much its letdown.

So I tell you what, purchase or take a listen below to the first three tracks from the album I have posted below, and if you feel you like those songs, who knows. Maybe you'll find the rest of "Zonoscope" a satisfactory album. I could be wrong. I may have blinked and missed a revolution, but it's a revolution without memorable hooks. Now I'm off to find that 1986 mix tape I recorded off the radio. It could have some Paul Young and T'Pau on it if I'm lucky. Now that "Heart and Soul" song by T'Pau, there's a song that worked a hook to no end.

Grade: B-
(Besides a few good tracks, will not see many repeated listens)

JHO Picks:
Need You Now
Take Me Over
Where I'm Going
Hanging Onto Every Heartbeat

  Need You Now by cutcopymusic

  Take Me Over by cutcopymusic

  Cut Copy - Where I'm Going by cutcopymusic

Source: http://www.jhostation.com/2011/02/new-music-review-cut-copy-zonoscope.html

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