ZEROMANCER – ZZYZX

To be honest: I was quite reluctant doing this review, since I’m aware of not being objective in this case. Because of my long-time adoration of Seigmen, every ZEROMANCER release had have a very hard job trying to convince me, what is surely not that fair to the band.
And again it seems that with Zzyzx pearls get cast before swine. To say it clearer, ZEROMANCER try hard to finally crack the American market with quieter material, as the tunes on the previous output Eurotrash were much heavier and metal-like. Evidence is not only the visual design of CD and booklet, but also inexpressive songs like the opener Teenage Recoil, Erotic Saints, that sounds like Smashing Pumkins and the croony-beautiful Famous Last Words, hinting at U2, but with nice strings. Whereas the latter ones are surely quite good – objectively spoken – but I think that there is no need for songwriter Kim Ljung to be so extremely “unfaithful”.
Passing the first four tracks the character of Zzyzx changes and gets much more gruffy. Even if Idiot Music is not the highlight I hoped for, it has at least more bite. Stop The Noise! again tends more into the direction to the previous album and is – despite of simple riffing – provided with the typical elegance and finesse the band is known for and makes people addicted to this kind of music. Unfortunately, afterwards only Lamb Halo can convince. The rest of the songs have still nice harmonies but the entire package is not homogeneous enough and now and then trivial riffs and passages creep in.
At the end there is nothing to nag about the perfect production and the musical achievements of all five members, whereas especially the singing conceals the one or other lack. Alex Møklebust is a singer with an unbelievable range vocal wise, attending with many facets and outstandingly harmonizing with the backing vocals by Kim Ljung. Accordingly its quite hard to rate. Surely my expectations got not fulfilled, but that cannot be the only assessment criterion. So, trying to be objective I’d like to rate with 8 points, since there are in fact a few downer in my opinion, but in general it’s all on a very high level, compared with other acts. And … being not ironically, ZEROMANCER are still too good (and independent) for the American market …