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Reviews: Zero ~ White Wine Winter Light
Posted on Saturday, October 09, 2004 @ 06:15:41 PDT
Topic: Reviews
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Artist: Zero
CD: White Wine Winter Light
Home: Providence, Rhode Island
Style: Punk, Rock
Quote: "All the tracks are catchy, guitar-driven anthems with quirky, honest, slightly off-key vocal stylings."
By Benjamin Daniels
Zero’s release White Wine Winter Light is a catchy fusion of rock and old school 80’s punk stylings. The songs reflect well the lo-fi punk era of the late 70’s early 80’s punk movement. All the tracks are catchy, guitar-driven anthems with quirky, honest, slightly off-key vocal stylings.
Opener "Bitter" is a rocking anthem that espouses apathy about life in general, and not caring about being bitter and depressed, pissing your life away. Sample lyrics: “I’m bitter, I’m bitter to the bitter end, got an ugly reflection and hate is my only friend.” This is all set to some thick guitar fuzz and a commanding beat. This song best showcases the singing talent of lead vocalist John DeVault.
"Rex" follows up with another hard-driving punk rocker about a seemingly evil cat. It’s always enjoyable to open an album liner and find lyrics that can make you chuckle, but at the same time make good use of metaphor. I applaud Zero for being able to mesh some humor in their music.
The title track is probably the only weak point of the CD. I felt that the song kind of dropped the overall energy of the disc and seemed to drag on a bit. I think that the band would do well to focus more on their strengths of writing shorter, punchier songs that keep things upbeat. I say this because I was immediately drawn back into the music by the opening of the next track, "Infinite Sadness." Some cool flanged guitar grabs you right by the ears as soon as it starts up and won’t let go for the next three and a half minutes. This song also brings the singing talent of drummer Brian Raymond into the spotlight. It’s a cool variation on their formula, having a different vocalist come into the front of the mix, and shakes things up a bit. I also don’t want to forget the talented bass work of Andy Hunter, who holds down a solid groove behind all the songs and keeps them moving.
Zero is quite a talented group and has found that fine line between current and retro without sounding gimmicky.
http://www.bignoisenow.com/zero.html
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