A bell and a broken
watch: two things randomly found, one of which is damaged. Not a bad allegory
for what the curious listener encounters on ZEBU!'s wily
litlte album. Things
We Found sounds pieced-together and, frankly, a little all over the
place; it jumps from battered junk-rock to gentle, fragmented melody
to abrasive noisescapery without overt reason or rhyme, keeping its audience on the nubs of its toes
throughout.
It's the sort of disjointed chicanery that defines these folks as
the convincing shit-disturbers that they are. You probably guessed as much from the
exclamation point in their name.
Throughout Things
We Found, the music continuously presents itself as distorted
or destroyed -- be it the peaked-out and garbled recording equipment
of "You Know It's Love When Your [sic] Making Love to a Corpse" and
"Aspa Delpap Pah" or the tenuous, burned-out groove of "The Death
Knell" parts one and two. I'll admit I'm somewhat more partial
to those more accessible moments which rally around tuneful
elements, keeping in mind that what qualifies as 'accessible' under
ZEBU!'s iron fist still qualifies as being way off the deep end by
most definitions. One of my favourite tracks is "Hair Down to Her
Feet," which converts abstract vocals, dusty drums, and a simple
guitar phrase into a gloriously warped jam cycle; here the band
conveys a nihilistic, apocalyptic atmosphere without reverting to
basement noise histrionics. Similar effects are achieved with "Hair
Down to her Feet" and "Pain & Sorrow," both of which rank among the
record's more memorable moments.
Admittedly,
Things We Found can be a rough listen. There are times when it
irks me considerably, and I won't pretend I'm earnestly grinning by
the eight minute mark of "You Know It's Love When Your [sic] Making Love
to a Corpse," whose cauldron of pedal noise, babbled vocals, and
spasmodic percussion may have been better conveyed in half the
duration. But ultimately, the way the band has set Things We
Found up -- namely, maintaining a constant sense of on-the-brinkness
with periodic descents into carnal chaos -- works. Just make sure
you come prepared.
