| CD REVIEW zZz |
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Band : zZz Formed in the year 2000, this Amsterdam based Dutch act has the peculiarity of having only two members: Björn Ottenheim taking care of vocals and drums while Daan Schinkel provides organ and synth sounds. With those “limited” (amount of) instruments, the duo make a dark and brooding Organ Rock. They brought their debut album Bikini Inferno in 2002 and have since seen their career spiralling upwards! The single Ecstacy(taken from their 2005 album The Sounds Of ZZZ, and already used on the Conamuslabel issued Dutch compilation album Dutch Rock Music 04) was used in the soundtrack of the movie Phileine Zegt Sorry. The album got the duo an Essent Award, and in December of 2005 theguyssupported Dutch Pop Rock hit monster Anouk for her shows in Antwerp and Rotterdam. In early 2008, the duo is contracted to write music to a commercial video for car manufacturor Fiat…the result is “Grip”, which wins an award in the category of “Best International Video” at the UK Music Video Awards 08 in mid October (which was, as you may have noticed, even before the release of the new album). Meanwhile, the duo had finished a video for the album’s title track, in which the secret was revealed behind he art-work of the album. Incidently, both that, the “Grip” video, and a “Making of ‘Running With The Beast’-video” can be viewed at myspace.com/zzz, which is also where you can listen to full-length mp3-files of “Grip” and two other songs (“Amanda” – which is, incidently, the only track on the album with guest performances, one Geert de Jong playing bass guitar and one Jos de Haas adding percussion –and “Angel” – check the blogs for a re-mix of the latter by No-Tricks) off the new album, plus an older track (“House Of Sin”). Although I wanted to argue that, to play àny kind of “Rock”, a band at least needs to either play the guitar or use guitar samples, I found that Daan more than occasionally succeeds in emulating a noisy kind of guitar sound…so, in other words, I’ve found the term of “Organ Rock” for zZz’s music to be quite appropriate. In a way, the music (but only the music) is occasionally remeniscent of that of The Doors. Of course, with Björn’s voice being what it is, the overal sound isn’t quite the same…which eventually makes zZz’s charm and unique individuality. On their MySpace page the duo describes their sound as being similar to a mix of Jon Spencer and Suicide, and that a description I certainly can live with! Mind you, the similarities wíll bend to either way depending on the song you’re listening to (the calmer songs being remeniscent of Suicide, the “heavier” ones to Spencer). The duo has started touring for the album in late November (well, began playing separate dates all over Holland to begin with, really). On Jan. 23 they’ll cross Dutch borders to France (Paris) and after a short return home (home meaning Holland) they’re off to the UK and Ireland for a short trip. After that, the guuys go off to Scandinavia (via two german gigs), and on February 18 & 19 they’ll have Belgian fans get a taste of their live performance (at Trixin Antwerpen and Charlatanin Gent respectively). 90/100 Tony. |