Review Summary: Peanut butter vibes..
Soundscape: a piece of music considered in terms of its component sounds.
This word comes to mind when I hear
Zaba , the debut album from Glass Animals. Their sound is a mixture of indie psychedelia with trip hop beats, creating an unexpectedly pleasant Alt-J-esque vibe. On paper, it doesn't seem like the combination of genres would work well, but that's what makes
Zaba so interesting: It defies what would typically work musically to create a unique, acid-soaked cohesive sound.
The bass lines, for example those on the lead single "Gooey", are deep and sharp without being overwhelming, and sound natural in complement to the vast array of different instrumentations and sometimes outlandish drum sounds. Interestingly enough, even with their trip-hop inspired beats, Glass Animals have found a way to make it interesting while still leaving room and letting their music breathe, letting the listener savor the quieter droning moments. Their song structure remains fairly uniform throughout, with laid back verses and choruses that fuse an impressive amount of instrumentation with a surprisingly beautiful result. It sounds almost as if they made the chorus first, and then stripped it down for the verses. This is best displayed on "Pools".
One of the most striking elements of the sound on
Zaba is the decision to keep frontman Edmund Irwin's voice clean, which would normally be in stark contrast to the psychedelic elements of their sound. But again, it works, and actually brings a very interesting and refreshing clarity to the strange, often ambiguous lyricism.
Perhaps the most interesting element of Glass Animals' sound on
Zaba is their remarkable ability to jump from seemingly clashing and different sounds without a hitch, and then using all of those elements to create their unique soundscape, embracing every quirk and oddity of the repertoire they established.
