Gold Zebra's self-titled debut LP opens with a song, "Drift Away," that reads like an instruction manual for listening to the rest of the album: "Another sleepless night/ Another broken heart/ This burning desire/ And I miss you." Anyone would do well to keep it around for such nights.
The songs that follow offer minimal instrumentation and vocals that build slowly, layer by layer, into emotionally compelling disco noir compositions. Gold Zebra know how to hold back, letting Julie's deadpan singing and JP Richard's orchestration fill a big, dark space of their own design.
"Invisible Disorder," the album's centrepiece and longest song, passes by like highway lines on a nighttime drive, while "Everything Beautiful Is Transient" serves as its cascading, echoing counterpart.
The whole album creeps toward a climax that never comes, as its "Outro" offers two minutes of sustained, high-pitched tones over the scratch of a record player. There's no escape from the night, no consolation offered to the narrator lamenting her lost lover. Gold Zebra avoid making easy choices, and their LP is better for it.
(Visage Musique)The songs that follow offer minimal instrumentation and vocals that build slowly, layer by layer, into emotionally compelling disco noir compositions. Gold Zebra know how to hold back, letting Julie's deadpan singing and JP Richard's orchestration fill a big, dark space of their own design.
"Invisible Disorder," the album's centrepiece and longest song, passes by like highway lines on a nighttime drive, while "Everything Beautiful Is Transient" serves as its cascading, echoing counterpart.
The whole album creeps toward a climax that never comes, as its "Outro" offers two minutes of sustained, high-pitched tones over the scratch of a record player. There's no escape from the night, no consolation offered to the narrator lamenting her lost lover. Gold Zebra avoid making easy choices, and their LP is better for it.
