The last decade has seen few Australian albums receive the worldwide critical acclaim bestowed upon Cut Copy’s stellar second LP In Ghost Colours. Looking back, their breakthrough second album seems as though it might not have enjoyed the appreciation it deserved in the outfit’s home country, despite being championed as indie darlings throughout the blogosphere. Though debuting at number one on the ARIA charts, the record fell in the shadow of compatriots and labelmates The Presets and their airwave conquering Apocalypso, which was released less than a month later. This may have played to Cut Copy’s advantage, with their poppy not quite growing tall enough to fall to the whims of our national syndrome.
Fortunately time has served anthems Lights And Music and Hearts On Fire well, as evidenced by their rapturous reception at their most recent Laneway headlining run. These killer vocal hooks are still present throughout Zonoscope, yet the whole tone is infused with an uplifting sense of cheer and euphoric enlightenment. Where Out There On The Ice was guided by an underlying sense of dread and despair, Take Me Over bears a more-straight pop bent with a chorus punctuated with a cheesy-as-hell “Yeah!”
Dan Whitford’s vocal performance is guided by what seems like a newfound inhibition, yielding to impulses to fill all empty space with Beach Boys-style “oo-oo-oohs”. Then there’s the very classic-pop experimentation instrumental Strange Nostalgia For The Future, which features an enchanting reversed synth track and a rolling bass melody that sounds like a leftover from Abbey Road. Furthermore, This Is All We’ve Got joins the plague of indie-pop tunes to appropriate the legendary drum intro to The Ronettes’ Be My Baby.
Midway through the album we’re presented with Pharaohs & Pyramids and Blink And You’ll Miss A Revolution, providing some brief moments where Zonoscope regresses back to the dance-punk aesthetic, but it doesn’t really overstay its welcome. Clocking in at 15 minutes, album closer Sun God breaks down into a preacher-style address with a vocal melody which calls to mind the theme to the seminal kids show Round The Twist before zoning out to a spacious, elongated beat.
While jettisoning some of the depth of In Ghost Colours, Cut Copy’s third LP is their most affirming, and overall enjoyable, statement yet. Not a classic pop record, but a pretty darn listenable one at that.
Best Track: Need You Now
If You Like These, You’ll Love This: Seek Magic MEMORY TAPES, Business As Usual MEN AT WORK
In A Word: Cowbell
