2 out of 5

Label: Skin Graft Records

Produced by: Keith Souza

In the post-Arab on Radar reshuffling, I was – as a fan – keen to see anything released from its members, and was interested in how the AoR sound was filtered via its different creators mixed-and-matched in other bands. Guitarist Jeff Schneider definitely brings his no-wave guitar stutter to Zodiac Zoo, but it gets sharpened from post-punk on-speed Devo to something more grinding and funky in Made in Mexico, with the disc starting with a Spanish guitar twaddle before dumping into low-end fuzz and that AoR-adjacent riffage. It’s promising, but there’s also something decidedly very polished about the whole thing, even from that opening. And while we can debate back and forth how much of Arab was shtick or art-rock posturing, to my ears, there’s a difference here: MiM has got chops all around, but it feels much more performative. This would be strengthened into a more distinct style on their followup, but on this debut, despite some definitely head-bobbing setups, and grabbing howls from vocalist Rebecca Mitchell, I never leave this album with much memory of what I’ve heard.

Part of it is the somewhat emptiness of the lyrics, which have social / political underpinnings, but come across as slogans more than impassioned anythings; again, we can discuss AoR’s provocations, but I’ve never doubted they stem from something singer Eric Paul was trying to work out. On Zodiac Zoo, “We’re keeping the rich and fat rich and fat” is the kind of open-ended statement we can all nod along at and feel good about, but it doesn’t feel backed up by anything especially deep beyond observation, which might explain why Mitchell more often falls back into shouting and warbling – acting as another musical layer instead of necessarily as a singer. And her shouts are pretty visceral.

Her warbles are part of the wishy-washiness of the group’s sound, though, which they can’t quite figure out how to employ beyond a baseline groove. At times, it seems as though they want to do a noise rock thing, relying on repetition, but the tracks are a bit too short and edgy for that; there’s some deconstruction happening – an avoidance of melody – but this is noncommittal. Their default sound of a fuzzed-up bass groove and deep guitar grind is their sharpest tactic, but I’d say drummer Dare Matheson, at least as recorded here, isn’t quite suited to that, their playing simply not at the level of pummeling needed to push the sound up and out of a midrange, which is how the aforementioned warbles affect the mix also.

Conceptually, I’m down with this band. But they clearly needed some time to find an identity that wasn’t as explicitly performative.