Zond - Zond

Zond have been grabbing the attention of myself and many others after they played an absolutely kick-ass set at the 'Noise Night' for Vivid Live at the Opera House, arguably upstaging fellow players Boris, Melt-Banana and Lou Reed. Frankly put, they were quite incredible (you can download the recording here). So, I decided to check them out a little more by grabbing their self-titled debut album; you can purchase it from The Outpost Store, though I purchased this CD over 2 weeks ago and it still hasn't arrived yet (I downloaded the album as I was getting impatient), so approach with caution perhaps.

But anyway, onto the actual music. Zond play what I would describe as a sort of shoegaze/noise/drone sound that may sound moderately familiar to veterans of the genre, but there's still definitely something new and fresh here so the sound is never really boring. The album sounds large, meaning that a wall of sound really does seem to encapsulate everything else when you listen to it. I guess the closest I could pin it to is a much heavier 'Isn't Anything'-era My Bloody Valentine, but with better drums. Songs like Blue Haze and Stupid Gods really do assault you with a barrage of guitar distortion and feedback, it's pretty damn awesome really.

But the album isn't all about sonic aggression, there are comparatively softer parts, take the song Section 35 where the band utilises samples and other tools to establish a somewhat desolate mood. It works to decent effect, though I wouldn't call these songs as good as the more noise-heavy ones, but maybe that's just me and my bwwwoooooo)))))aaahhh loving ways.

The album closes with Apis, by far my favourite of the album; it's a sublime mixture of powerful percussion with fantastic feedback (hurr durr alliteration). This one is quite possibly a contender for song of the year thus far and, whilst it still probably isn't as good as Have One on Me the song (which, for those of you playing at home, I reviewed a while back), it's definitely in the top 5.

To summarise (short review, I know), I'm pretty excited about this band. They're Australian, they're awesome and it's clear that their guitarists can handle feedback almost as well as drone goddess Wata. It's nice to actually have a little excitement about the current Australian music scene, something that I've been pretty indifferent towards since it was flooded with shitty post-hardcore bands. I'll actually be posting the download link to this one as I know it's more important for a new band like Zond to have people listening to their music, not necessarily paying.

Download (FLAC)