ZapTown

Zykos
Self-Titled
2004 – Post Parlo

Origin: Austin, Texas
Style: Indie Rock

This is one of those bands that catches you by surprise. When you hear it, you wonder why you haven’t discovered them earlier. It’s only after that you then realize, will I hear from them again.

Their sophomore release is very easy to digest and simple to put on in many occasions. Leaps and bounds from their debut Comedy Horn, it’s a rare example where the band hires a reputable indie rocker – Jim Eno of Spoon – to produce the album, but the results gave hindrance to an album instead of helping it — his production led to a gritty and raw overlay of garbled noise to an otherwise delicate band.

What Zykos needed was a well-polished sound and clear view of their galactic vision, and they got it on this release. The band’s epic scope of twinkling melodies and brilliant constructive clarity is sobering.

It begins with a simple driving beat and carries on from there. I felt a little bad finding vocal similarities between Mike Booher and Elliott Smith, but the way the two enunciate words are similar. And name-dropping is not so much of a bad thing when the band goes out of their way to participate in an Elliott Smith tribute show (http://media.www.dailytexanonline.com/media/storage/paper410/news/2008/03/06/LifeArts/
Austin.Musicians.To.Play.Tribute.Show.At.Emos.For.Late.Texas.Singer.Elliot.Smith-3255843.shtml). But instead of a humbling approach as Elliott often gave off, Booher sings his lyrics almost in defiance.

All the telephone kids started loosing friends.
It’s a sign that you’re getting old.
Still you layed it out tonight.
I could not ask to leave it.
In time it will not erode…
So you turn out to the right.
It seems sane to look on.

“Calliope” is this magnificent opus that expands seven minutes into music bliss whether it’s the sense of departure or a triumphant exclamation that the indie kids have all grown up.

The band does write melancholic songs like “George Eliot,” perhaps an homage to the Victorian author but lyrically created in modern context as a piano playfully wanders in and out of the song.

But the band sounds best when they are giving out the guilt trip like on the song “Dark Tan” and “Already Came Back,” two quintessential Zykos songs.

“Save Up” ends the disc by dimming the lights and distorting their sound into a minimal gospel tune that puts a nice ambiance to the album just before it all disappears into silence.

Cross-Reference: Mineral, Spoon, American Analog Set