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Second album from Dutch duo Zea really ought to come accompanied with health warning stickers such is it’s danger to not only health but physical well being, after living through this you sense that things may never been the same again where listening pleasures are concerned. ‘Today I forgot to complain’ wildly follows on from where their debut ‘Kowtow to an idiot’ so abruptly flew from the rails.
In the two year gap between both releases these two alchemists of pop mischief have been conducting covert experiments with sound under the cover of night, while both holding an upside down copy of the mechanics of melody handbook for reference and leafing through their collective record collections for likely heroes to cannibalise and use as mulch in their barbed symphony of duelled overloaded electronics, scorched guitars arrangements and digital cut ups. Be warned though ‘Today I forgot to complain’ is seriously edgy, often crooked and sometimes frightening. The recent singles ‘Counting backwards leads to explosions’ and ‘A experience of trouble’ have both served as fair warning as to the bands intent. The former a screwball plotted trajectory through a meteor storm maze of wayward beats, maddening fuzzed up backdrops with a punk mentality at the core. The latter has all the finesse of a mental patients day out to a musical instrument store, a mind-blowing experience that has you rethinking the worth of the Cardiacs as the keepers of the lunatic pop punk crown. ‘An experience of trouble’ truly is fried with some of the best chord play chorus work this side of classic Buzzcocks. Taking cover is advised under the hail of surprise attacking stutter sprayed guitars on ‘Flying objects will reach you soon’, while the drug ‘addled confusion of ‘Press start to continue’ that’s sure to exert whiplash on collision, sounding as it does like three separate records tagged together in ad hoc fashion. Elsewhere, ‘Of course it hurts, it always does’ and ‘He’s passed’ provide the albums calmest points, the latter morosely delivered with calming acoustics and haunting sound hitting a lonely place between Black Heart Procession and the mighty Smog. ‘Kiss kiss revolution’ is, how shall I put it, akin to someone putting a large bucket on your head, giving you a hammer to hit repeatedly while spinning you around in circles, devilishly awesome. Best cut of the set though has to be the nightmarish ‘Mountain every minute’ twisted pastiches of awkward stutter arrangements that ultimately make the Cravats look like a kids pop band.
Strange to say but it’s difficult putting your finger on these guys in as far as reference points, sure there’s the subtle hint of the warped elements of the Elephant 6 collective buried deep beneath the mass of frenzied sample-click-rock, yet the overall jumbled signatures point to some unreal Beefheart / Fall hybrid, throw in a few slices of Winterbrief and a whole host of bastardised hardcore and your nearly half way there. Without doubt though the most discordant thing you’ll hear all year, is it really legal for pop to sound so wired and weird? Essential.
MARK BARTON
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