Album Review: Zombi - Zombi & Friends Vol. 1
Reviewed by Patrick O'Reilly
WARNING!! – We are straying very far away from metal territory here! Only carry on reading this review if you are open minded in your musical tastes and appreciate bands trying something different!!
Pittsburgh synth and drums legends Zombi have always worn their influences on their sleeves, from the 70s prog masters Goblin to the sinister digital soundscapes of John Carpenter these guys have always been rooted in the past. Never more so than on this album though which sees them cover a number of easy listening hits by varies artists including Neil Diamond, Barry Gibb/Barbara Streisand and Dionne Warwick, not what you would come to expect from the band that gave us the earth shattering heaviness of 2009’s Spirit Animal LP.
They have also rounded up some of their mates to help them out on this release including members of The Sword, Pinkish Black and Trans AM.
Sonically it is a mesmerising and luscious blend of 70s cheese with an eerie sense of something not being quite right. The music is calming and played pretty much straight but it feels slightly off, whether that be the looming threat of heavy synths coming in at any time or the deeper, slower vocal arrangements in comparison to the originals. It all makes for a very dreamlike release and one that will please some people but probably annoy even more!!
The closest thing we have to metal comes with the cover of the Alan Parson’s Projects – Sirius/Eye in the Sky with its building atmosphere and theatrics and that classic synth riff. If you fancy something a bit different to the frenetic and heavy then this is a great release to chill too and will bring back some distant memories of these songs hidden away in the memory banks of the mind
I would recommend this album in particular for fans of – Goblin, John Carpenter, Pink Floyd.
