Review Summary: A thought-out step in the right direction, with a few duds here and there.
By the late 90’s,
Local H entered a relatively bleak period of their career. They just left their label and drummer Joe Daniels exited the project, which, for those unaware of the band, was half of the group. All that was left of Local H was Scott Lucas and his heavily-modified guitar. However, the end was (thankfully) not near, for Lucas recruited Brain St. Clair to fill in on drums. By 2002, the duo released their comeback record,
Here Comes the Zoo, a well-rounded slab of catchy hard rock, which was exactly what Local H fans needed to hear after a four-year hiatus.
As soon as the disc starts to play, you are hit with one of the most massive and mind-blowing openers in the band’s career. “Hands on the Bible” is a track that combines thought-provoking lyrics, passionate vocals, and beautiful instrumentation. Lucas quietly moaning
“A pretty baby / Never to be born” is enough to send chills down the listener’s spin. As time goes on, the track becomes more and more loud, eventually climaxing to an explosive ending, with Lucas yelling
“You can’t pretend that you don’t know the reasons” with enough emotion in his voice to make you tear up a little. This track pretty much showcases every single advantages this record contains; Great lyricism and amazing instrumentation.
In fact, let’s talk about the instrumentation for a bit, specifically Brian St Clair. He is a great, great drummer, and definitely the best person to fill in Joe Daniels shoes. The fast-paced, hard tracks such as “Son of ‘Cha’” and “Bryn-Mawr Stomp” showcases his tendencies to bash the living hell out of his drumset, and some of the slow-paced songs like “(Baby Wants to) Tame Me” shows that he’s just as capable to keep up a steady tempo and even add some very nice fills. The album does have its lows, unfortunately.
You see, for every superb track, there seems to be an ‘okay’ track, like “Rock n’ Roll Professionals”, for example. Here, the band attempts to insert their trademark scorn with a track poking fun of washed-up rock musicians who believe that they’re some sort of godly force because they have a couple of radio hits. With previous songs like “All the Kids are Right”, Local H proved that they can write a humorously mean-spirited song and make it fun to listen to, but here they simply sound bored, offering nothing particularly memorable. The duds on the album damage the overall score, however nearly everything is saved by the closing track “What Would You Have Me Do?”
If “Hands on the Bible” would be Local H’s best opener, then “What Would You Have Me Do?” would be the duo’s best closer. Imagine everything that made “Hands” great, then downright perfecting it. That’s essentially “What Would You Have Me Do?” at its core, a beautifully crafted song about dying in a drunken car crash. Lucas sounds full fledge upset here, and the lyrics are just as bleak as ever.
“Can you just go home hated? / Half intoxicated / Hopelessly outdated and never appreciated” is one line that will never leave the listener’s mind, and the lyrics
“Can you take the final blow and admit that you’ve ***ed up?” emphasizes the record’s biggest lesson: Actions have consequences. After 5 minutes of pure verbal confrontation and tightly constructed instrumentation, all the guitars stopped and all you have left is Brian and his drums.
“So, is that it?” you think, expecting the song to just fade out from there. After that thought passes your mind, you are answered by a delayed guitar strum.
“No, they’ve only just begun”.
The guitars absolutely rip through the track, and Brian’s drums makes it impossible to hear any sort of silence. Samples taken from previous tracks (i.e. the chorus from “5th Ave. Crazy”) are used to form the song into a sort of “musical collage”, which surprisingly works well! Each sample is mixed in such a way to make it fit with the overall tone of the track, not one chant feels out of place. This, in turn, forms an insanely beautiful song that stays with you, emotionally and mentally. “What Would You Have Me Do?” is not only the best Local H songs period, but one of the best songs of 2002.
So what else is there to say about
Here Comes the Zoo? It certainly proves that Local H can withstand any obstacle thrown at them, and it did it’s job at keeping the attention of all the fans who were left in the dark during the band’s four-year hiatus. Of course, the few bland tracks keep this album from achieving that perfect “five-outta-five” rating, but all-in-all,
Here Comes the Zoo is yet another reason why the band’s lack of popularity confuses many.
