Zero Point - Time Stands Still
Released: 24th April 2005
Label: Copro Records
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Fresh from the Casket! From the label that brought you the Nu-metal stylings of Vacant Stare come Boston, Lincolnshire grungers Zero Point. Whether or not the band know it, (I’m sure they do) Zero Point is the point at which an object loses its gravity, either by leaving the earth’s atmosphere or becoming weightless by other means.
How does this translate musically? In the case of “Right to Resist” it’s a nu-metal romp through some naïve political points as well as some other very random lyrics – “Can’t see me I have an erection, they’ll show the war cos they got an election.” Er…Other sexually dubious lyrics include “When you come I will choke”. on “Choke”. Hmm. Not sure about that one.
What’s good about this album? Well, second track, “Talk to Me” is a driving slice of rock, like a much heavier U2, with its distorted vocal and pounding bassline complemented by Nirvana-ish chords. This song is good enough to stand out as a potential single for Xfm or something if it isn’t too heavy for them. Its clearly the best thing on the album.
The rest of the CD, however is a bit less imaginative musically, with the exception of “One size fits all” which starts off as a Bad Manners kind of almost ska tale of homelessness and a life generally gone down the shitter which then goes into heavy grunge mode – its probably a track which is popular live.
When I say less imaginative, I mean it deals mostly with introspection in the lyrics, and relationships gone wrong – six tracks deal with broken relationships and most of the rest deal with misfortune, either theirs or someone else’s. So the music, following suit is mostly slow, clean chords on the guitars building up to a heavier chorus for the most part, so its fairly formulaic stuff, reminiscent of Nirvana meets Foo Fighters and I think, Therapy?
Credit must go to the drummer, Jason Wood, who puts in a tom-heavy performance worthy of Dave Grohl, who coincidentally is what the singer occasionally sounds like, although he does have a fairly individual voice apart from that.
So, in all, not a bad start at all, its not great, but it is worth a listen, or at least the first two tracks are, and the rest of the album could be down to personal taste, like closing ballad “Simple Smile”, which I’m sure will reduce some people to tears – it doesn’t have that effect on me unfortunately. Worth checking out live too I think, if they travel south.
For more information you can visit: http://www.zeropoint.org.uk
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