ZOMBI - Spirit Animal CD Review

                ARTIST: Zombi     TITLE: Spirit Animal     YEAR: 2009     LABEL:  Relapse Records     RATING:      REVIEWED BY: "Dirty" Drew Harris     REVIEW: In another one of my reviews I said that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover...unless it's really obvious. You find a band called "Zombi" and you take a listen, what do you expect to hear? Driving, death metal? Brutal hardcore that's worse for you than asbestos and ball gags combined? Thrash so heavy that your head falls clean off your shoulders from the sheer weight of being? Something so dark that you could spread it on your toast? Yeah, you probably would expect something like that. What you wouldn't expect to find is a CD of 5 tracks, the shortest of which is around 7 minutes, the longest of which is closer to 17!!!! The, completely instrumental, album seems conflicted in a way. The music stylings seem almost minimalist at times, but there's just so much of it that you could never, with a straight face, refer to it as anything like that at all. The thing I like about this album is the same thing I dislike it for. Seems strange, right? Well, I'm a complex guy. Large chunks of tracks, especially "Cosmic Powers" feel like they've been ripped directly from the sound track of a particularly good game on the Amiga or, in some cases, the Sega Megadrive (On a side note, I would love it if a band opened their CD the way Sega's used to boot up. Not the logo, that'd be a bit tough for an aural medium, but just that haunting voice, casually singing "Seeeeeeega".) I guess that can't be a wholly bad thing, but I don't think I ever played the games for as long as some of these songs go on for. Even if I did, the music would normally change from level to level. So for me, a lot of this album just feels like I'm stuck on the same level, like I'm some sort of cack-handed degenerate who can't destroy Dr. Robotniks latest invention. *Rage* DAMN YOU DR. ROBOTNIK YOU FAT SON OF A BITCH!!!! ...Gimme back mah rabbits and birds and other assorted animals! ...or feel my blue, spiky wrath! Do you remember playing games when you were a kid and you got stuck? And you'd just wish that you could find a way to beat it so the game could start being fun again? Well that's probably an accurate description of this album. There were little bits that made me smile like there was a hooker under my desk, but the majority of it felt like a bargaining process where I eventually gave up on the whole idea so I could go feed ducks or chase a ball around with a stick. The problem is that you can't just have an album that consists completely of the things that make you smile. If most people did that then albums would only be a minute or so long. Granted, my job would be a hell of a lot easier, but I don't think it'd be a satisfying way to do things. Zombi have the talent, they have the artistic temperament, they have...Synth for some reason. This isn't Terminator, guys! And in places this album is very pleasant. It just goes on for way too long! You know how long this review took me to write? 2 Zombi songs, and I used the first one to go make myself some tea.      TRACKLISTING:    01. Spirit Animal02. Spirit Warrior03. Earthly Powers04. Cosmic Powers05. Through Time    LINKS:    

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