|
By: Dennis Cook
How original do you need to be? It's a worthy question in this hyper information age where whole music libraries fit in your pocket. The Zincs' sophomore platter sounds a lot like things we've heard before but like recent albums from Midlake and IV Thieves, this is more homage than plagiarization.
Zincs leader Jim Elkington is a son of Nick Cave with a funereal perspective and a thick chest voice that gives dark body to even the lightest lyrics. However, there's not much sunshine in these parts, where we're told to "hold your tears until your eyelids burst."
Black Pompadour (released March 20 on Thrill Jockey) opens with a keyboard riff that fell out of Keith Emerson's ass before careening into "Head East Kaspar," a head-nodding swirl worthy of Morrissey and Marr. "Coward Corral," "Hamstrung and Juvenile" and "Rich Libertines" update The Doors' California soul in much the same way Echo and the Bunnymen once did. "Rice Scars" could be a lost Quicksilver Messenger Service cut with rough female vocals and twinkling guitars moving to a handclap march. "Finished In This Business" is late '70s Talking Heads, "Burdensome Son" has Pavement's stop-start jerkiness wedded to faux flamenco flourishes and "Lost Solid Colors" is primo soft rock Gary Wright would've killed for.
What saves Black Pompadour from being overly derivative are the undeniably solid songs and the utter sincerity of their execution. Much of this is haunted as Orpheus, a tremulous mood full of quirks that transform the familiar into something new.
JamBase | California
Go See Live Music!
| 
