Zykos - Keep it Light EP (Cult-Hero)

Zykos - Race Rabbit

Music at its base is all about expression of emotion, and most likely your top 5 albums or artists are up there due to some kind of emotional recognition you’ve had with the content.  The four tracks on Keep it Light bear some sort of emotion but a kind I had a hard time buying.  It was a quality similar to what you’d expect from Built to Spill or Atlanta locals the Close. Comparing emotion may be an abstract concept. Characterizing music with words is already abstract enough, but the point is that this EP is too wishy-washy and unassertive to strike a definite chord.

The first track on Keep it Light, “What You Know,” opens with a very uninspired albeit energetic Charlie Brown-esque piano melody backed by some warmly banal and bland guitar work later complemented by a very danceable beat and a synthy distortion.  Once Mike Booher’s vocals come in, you may think he’s doing an exaggerated Bruce Springsteen impression. I will admit that the songs all become more engaging as time goes on…and so does the EP as a whole.

Booher’s voice does some shape-shifting and wavering throughout the EP. During the title track, he begins to channel Tom Petty, but seems to lose him by the time Catherine Davis’ vocals enter. And later on, during “October Rain,” the EP takes a turn for the pretentious as the band starts to sound like a tribute to Cursive’s the Ugly Organ (Petty resurfaces somewhere near the middle).  But to be fair, this is one of the better tracks out of the four, and it demonstrates that they have a knack for fairly compelling, almost cinematic song structure not really seen anywhere else on the EP.

I spent the whole time listening to Keep it Light wondering if this band had embraced pompous musicianship, or if it was a subtly parody.  At times, Booher elevates his vulnerable yelping to a kind of tongue-in-cheek grizzly barking, almost as if he begins to feel silly and has a sudden urge to ridicule his own voice.  The most successful track is “Race Rabbit,” which is bouncy danceable fun that could find its way into the reconciliatory final scene of a Wes Anderson movie. It echoes british invasion ala the Faces’ “Ooh La La.” The EP’s four tracks are the first Zykos has submitted in four years, implying that they may have landed at a crossroads with their music, grasping for some definite direction.  Their efforts on Keep it Light are just short of being too vague to make any sort of impression at all.  Let’s just hope they choose a less ambiguous path from this point on.

Buy Zykos’ Keep It Light EP