This year is a serious year of growth for bands we have come to love. Cut Copy’s newest album is no different. Zonoscope consists of carefully timed out beats and movement, while still containing great songs we can all groove around to and always sticking true to the band’s signature 80’s style music.

Bright Like Neon Love and Ghost Colours each had something very different going for them. In 2004, Bright Like Neon Love showed us who Cut Copy was. We were introduced to this crazy indie band that knew how to infiltrate songs with powerful house beats. They gave us music to dance to. 2008’s Ghost Colours reiterated this fact, but also gave us new pop anthems to sing all day and curse out when they got stuck in our heads. For their third album, they needed to add something. People were beginning to really capitalize on the sound Cut Copy had striven to be known for. They needed to add something or change something, and boy, did they.

Something new we see with Zonoscope is that there is a lot more rock and roll going on. They are still the indie dance poppy bad we know, but they are also trying to bridge the gap between dance and rock. Cut Copy is essentially saying we can still dance to rock and roll, and that house music and dub step are not our only options. It’s refreshing to see a band deviating from pop to rock. It’s usually the other way around.

The album opens with “Need You Now”. It’s a woozy, low key sort of song, but the electric activity going on in the background really wakes the listener up. It starts out slow and builds and builds, adding various elements until we’re in the heat of the song. It’s so totally 80’s, it’s somewhat ridiculous (in a good way).

“This is All We Got” sums up what I’m trying to say the best. With blips of whatever, synths, twinkles, sick drums, a guitar backing all the other sound up and Dan Whitford’s sleepy voice, listeners are taken through each transition in the song. We can see where the band is, where the band has been and where the band is going to go. In a way, this album seems like it is foreshadowing future endeavors, and is setting the listeners up to prepare for them.

When this album was released in February, it was hard to get into. The poppy sound that was coming out of our ear buds did not imitate what those of us in the northern hemisphere were witnessing out our windows. We saw the cold and dark, not 80’s influenced pop-rock sunny days. Now that it is summer up north, we can experience what those in the southern hemisphere (Cut Copy are from Australia) were talking about and doing. This album will be great for road trips (across country or just down the road to the local market) because no matter how many times you listen to it, you notice something new in every song. You will definitely find yourself singing along with this album to your steering wheel.

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About the author

Jackie Bergeron