Review Summary: Sweet, sweet synths
Zeta, the 80s-inspired synthwave formation of Dan Tompkins (Tesseract), Katie Jackson, and Paul Ortiz (Chimp Spanner), have set out to make quite the pop album. To be specific, they’re aiming for a succinct evocation of various futuristic, cyber-punk elements that would naturally be portrayed through some sort of synthetic toolkit. But as a reminder of its inherent humanity,
Zeta prominently bears the versatile and reliably strong voice of Dan.
I’m calling
Zeta a pop album because it embodies the best principles that the term “pop” has to offer. It melds together concise songwriting, addicting hooks, and dynamic beats with a crisp and spacious production, full of lush synthesizers and the occasional flourishes of electric guitar. Zeta do many styles well: upbeat and anthemic (“The Distance”, “Beat the System”), ethereal and pensive (“Lock and Key”, “Elysian Fields”), forceful and with a sense of urgency (“Right Time”, “Gates of Hell”). Whatever the mood, one can expect there to be intricate synth layers and a beat of appropriate weight. Compare the sustained, restrained bass notes of “Elysian Fields” to the heavy-hitting thumps of “The Distance”, and it becomes evident that Zeta have a pretty good sense when it comes to establishing that primitive rhythmic foundation. If you’re looking for suitable workout songs, I definitely recommend the more active tracks on this album.
The whole premise of
Zeta relies on its effectiveness at creating a thoroughly-detailed, futuristic world. And how rich it seems, gentle washes of resonating melodies in one part complimenting the coldly aggressive drive in another. “Fountain of Youth” is sweet and subtly effervescent, while songs like “Silent Waves” feel expansive and thrilling in virtue of the sheer amount of open space that they create.
Zeta portrays a world that is neither overtly utopian or dystopian, but I’m detecting a slight optimism in the way that it builds up to the multi-layered complexity in its closer, “Chemical Zone”. It combines the emotional peaks and troughs of
Zeta into one singular piece; “give me a day to rule the world”, sings Dan, even as “the lights will fade away”.
But it hurts me slightly to speak of the lyrics. No matter how charitably I interpret the vanilla scenarios (“You gave me your heart and told me to hide” on “Lock and Key”, “you’re pulling me in deeper deep love” on “Causeway”), I simply cannot find much thematic cohesiveness between the lyrics and the elaborately constructed soundscapes of
Zeta. Now, it’s not as if I’m expecting everything to be an explicit reference to Blade Runner or William Gibson novels, but it’s a real detriment to the submersion factor of
Zeta when the lines speak of little more than generic love song themes and half-hearted introspection (see: “I keep searching for life that’s meaningful/And I’ll keep moving ’til the lights go out). Fortunately for me, I am terrible at actually identifying what is being sung, and so I was mostly spared this pain on my listening experiences. Nevertheless, I can’t shake off the feeling that if Zeta had written more fleshed-out lyrics, the album would be elevated to even loftier heights. Its lush musicality deserves better than the tropes which have been slapped on. Oh well - human fallibility, I suppose.
Despite my grievances with the lyrics, I am still happily enjoying the vibrant future-pop of
Zeta. It’s the sort of music that flows smoothly through the veins, and it’ll inject some groove in you at opportune moments. The production of
Zeta, with all its intricacies and satisfying touches of reverberation, can’t be underestimated - that aspect alone makes it a masterful creation. If you’re nostalgic for a bygone era or just looking to jam to something interesting,
Zeta will most certainly serve your purposes. It also demonstrates the sheer efficacy of tight, efficient songwriting, and thus has a sort of cerebral element to it as well. So immerse yourself in
Zeta - if you’re “waiting for the right time”, it’s now.
