“Sooner or Later”
from the EP Cameo
2009
iTunes
Your typical singer that possesses the airy whispery vocal styling tends to take a back seat to the instrumentation that accompanies it, but that is not the case with modern shoegazers Zaza. These mystical, dreamy vocals hold just as much weight as the swirl of sound that gives Zaza’s music the shoegaze name. Their new EP Cameo features six tracks of exalting audible pleasure.
While the EP’s power wanes slightly in the middle, songs like “Arms Length” and the subtle “Repetition” do maintain a viable stance in their quest for epic greatness. But it’s the first two tracks, “The Call” and “Sooner or Later” respectively, and closer “Faith in the Faithless” that find Zaza filled with anthemic grandeur. Not only do these songs call upon the shoegaze gods to rain down mountainous doom in the form of melodic noise, they do so in a way that is so aesthetically pleasing it’s enough to bring even the strongest of men to tears.
Zaza is a drug — a beautiful, mind-numbing, addictive drug. This type of hypnosis should be illegal. Thankfully, for the trustworthy listener, it’s not.