Album: Cut Copy – Zonoscope

Cut Copy
Zonoscope
Modular Recordings
2 stars

After 2008’s insanely popular In Ghost Colours, Cut Copy were always going to struggle to follow up with an album that packed the same punch and ability to fill the dance floor. The Australian quartet’s third instalment provides us with a more serene landscape in which, whilst still maintaining the summertime bounce and sunshine appeal of old, also offers a more experimental insight into the path the band may now take. After due consideration, this particular path appears one I do not want to hear much more from.

Although well constructed and listenable, Zonoscope just never seems to take off or break away from mediocrity. The recurring attempts to hark back to ‘80s synth-pop are emphasised with the use of the hook from Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Everywhere’ in second track ‘Take Me Over’, becoming somewhat irritating. At the risk of sounding clichéd, this appears to me to be the traditional stylistic third album and comes across as over-produced and over-indulgent. With most songs lasting more than five minutes and the album itself lasting well over an hour, tracks that could be far shorter and hence far catchier are left to drawl out into monotonous, hedonistic bores. None more so than the album’s closing track. Very much a marmite creation, you will either love or hate the expansive 15-minute album closer ‘Sun God’ which begins with great promise but eventually slopes off into a meandering quarter-hour of synth-driven tedium.

This final track goes a long way to summarise the entire album. Don’t get me wrong, there are more than enough stick-in-your-head melodies to fill the thoughts of any nightclub goer. Nevertheless, the steady deterioration towards the long, the irritating and the repetitive, means Zonoscope just doesn’t manage to reach the dizzy heights of its predecessor.

Tom Hickman