Cut Copy:Zonoscope

5.7/10 Dropps

Cut Copy, like most bands today, has had a lot of labels slapped on them since the release of their first album. Dance-pop, electro-pop, post-punk, dance-rock: it can be dizzying to try to keep track of them all, but the one thing it boils down to is this – they’ve got plenty of pop to spread around and while listening, not dancing is not an option.
Zonoscope, Cut Copy’s third full-length release, takes the dance aspect of their dance/rock persona and treats it like the guest of honor. Songs like their single “Take Me Over” make this quite plain. In particular, “Take Me Over” is the essence of every other song on this album. It’s 80s dance music at its finest. If you’re at all familiar with Cut Copy’s past two releases, Bright Like Neon Love and Ghost in Colours, then you know that they like to mix their electronic-dance sounds with a bit of old-fashioned rock. With Zonoscope, Cut Copy has mostly discarded the guitars in favor of synths, drum machines, and keyboards. In modern terms there’s a bit of an Of-Montreal-meets-Animal-Collective theme. But in 80s terms (arguably their biggest inspiration), it sort of feels like the spirit of Michael Jackson teamed up with the voice of David Bowie and gave a stirring performance of “Mad World” (the original Tears for Fears version, of course).

There’s a high-octane energy surrounding Zonoscope’s musical landscape that tends to blend in an interesting way with the authoritative aura of front man Dan Whitford’s voice. That mix of energy and authority gives this album a happy-go-lucky, power-ballad feel to it. “Blink and You’ll Miss a Revolution” is like some sort of call to arms. If it weren’t for the misty-eyed, dream-like quality of the synthesizers, one might be tempted to grab their rifle and fall into line with the rest of the squad. That contrast between aggression and euphoria tends to come up throughout this whole album. “Pharaohs & Pyramids” is another good example. On one hand, the song has a trance-laden sense of wonder to it, but on the other, there are chants interwoven throughout for the best of club dancing and fist pumping. If anything, though, Cut Copy falls more on the up-beat pop end of that spectrum, and “Alisa” is another unquestionably poppy track where the guitars actually start to take center stage. It has the same dance-rock qualities as Phoenix’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.

Zonoscope is an experience to be taken in one large chunk at a time. The transitions from one song to the next are smooth, and production value is high. There aren’t bits and pieces of songs that you should pick up here and there (except perhaps for the single “Take Me Over” and the opener “Need You Now”). Instead, it’s one long session of listening and dancing. Therefore, the problem lies in the fact that almost every song on this album starts to blend into one exhausting, hour-long song. The transitions are definitely smooth, but almost so smooth that the switch tends to go unnoticed, like white noise in the background. In moments like “Where I’m Going,” the anthem-filled choruses and arena-rock eminence are what break this mold and repetitive pace and keep the dance floor happy.

But other than those few shining gems, Cut Copy’s Zonoscope rides on the same bandwagon as some of the artists and bands mentioned above. It’s well-polished, it’s fun, but it’s not going to change any rules. Maybe that would be expecting too much out of it, as Zonoscope feels like an album that found a comfortable spot to sit and wait, in line and out of the way. The tracks are true dance-pop, and they definitely make a racket, but they’re careful not to make too much of a racket. Perhaps they’re afraid of shaking foundations—a serious misstep in the case of an art.

-Robert Miller