The Zutons - 'Who Killed The...?' (Deltasonic)
4/5
By: Toby L
Darker yet more tuneful than Abba covered in steaming tar, The Zutons are a Liverpudlian revelation.
Soul; bluesgrass; alt.country; 60s pop; Cuban strums; mysterious instrumentals; The Zutons cover it all beyond convincingly. Young, infectious and unafraid to meld all of the above, often at once, to a devastating effect, is it really such a surprise that their singles have begun to slay the top-30 at large and garner euphoric, sell-out crowd reactions?
In short: heck, no. 'Who Killed The Zutons?' is a wilfully haphazard collage of their immense scale, and seldom relents in its visceral, yet distinguishably youthful expanse. Songs groove, shudder, tell stories of ridiculous fantasy and lilt, while in 'You Will You Won't', we have the finest 70s smash to have ever been released twenty-four years too late; you can almost hear the running in the parking-lot from Starsky & Hutch as the band soundtrack the hapless heroes in a distant, stoner-friendly universe.
Of the material, every track is a dutiful winner, so a brief run-down, we get: the opening, jittery, twanging guitar-swagger of 'Zuton Fever'; wondrous schizo pop-chaos of 'Pressure Point'; dreamy, ballad-like poignancy of 'Confusion'; chilling sax-parpin', bass-humping cacophony that envelopes 'Havana Gang Brawl'; anthemic, massive chant-along, 'Railroad' ('I've saved every penny, my girl/I hope that you've been waiting out there/For all my love when I get home/'Cos deep down in my heart there's a hole'); scattery urgency of 'Long Time Coming'; lazy slumber of 'Not A Lot To Do'; beauteous refrain of 'Gotta keep the feelin' in' amid a misty-eyed 'Remember Me'; funky freak-out 'Dirty Dancehall'; and final, Coral-esque bow-out, 'Moons & Horror Shows'.
And all held together by the songwriting ingenuity and guiding vocal of one, fine young buck, Dave McCabe, replete with backing from some of the most imaginative, new musos we presently bear. Really, it's an inspired potion you'll soon question how you spent so long without.
Artists in this article: The Zutons
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