Review Summary: Zomby reluctantly makes you dance. Club-junkies, take notice.
A short EP is a beautiful thing. While long albums hold a personal weight for many people, sometimes the jab of a few tracks is just as powerful. These albums are flashes in the pan; they arrive, excite, and leave as quickly as they began. Certainly, Zomby is his own special kind of flash. In line with his flurry of EPs since 2008,
The Lie is a consistent dubstep album that offers any fan a diversion between LPs.
Zomby has always had a knack for mixing funky rhythms with fun synth melodies. Each of
The Lie's twin offerings is a different perspective of his sound; although they follow a similar theme. ‘The Lie’ has a beat that prefers to ensnare the listener and force a sway; during which, the vocals pepper with a sense of cynicism. It retains an expected pattern, but never allows its dejection to persist in a negative way. It is certainly a more relaxed sadness than venomously spiteful.
‘Dripping Like Water’ is more reminiscent of
Dedication than previous albums. The vocal section is still there, but fades out quickly. It relies more on its cheesy synth lines to create the sensation of the track’s title, as opposed to the use of entrancing samples in ‘The Lie.’ It doesn’t necessarily quell the cynicism throughout the work; but each track retains a sense of predictability, allowing them to flow between each other in easily identified patterns. During my own experience, the album actually played ten times; cathartic dancing masked the ten-minute runtime.
Although
The Lie is a short-lived affair, it is by no means empty. Each track is a picture of the elusive man taken from different lights. Some may find this approach impersonal; his anonymity can create a gap between the track and his own feelings. His consistency could even bore some listeners, and perhaps the greatest problem is that debate between chilled and boring. While Zomby himself might be affected by the rainy skies of South London,
The Lie is a monstrously fun album; one that any fan of electronic music should want.
