The Zoltars "Walking Through The Dark" on CQ Records

Jared from The Zoltars is a master of simple melody, he knows exactly how to slowly reveal the tracks on "Walking Through The Dark" without great fanfare in an attempt to seem smarter than everyone else in the room, even if he is.
This album has much more space than his pervious full length Should I Try Once More. There’s a much grander sense of space, his themes continue to explore everyday and mundane but this underlying huge sound builds like a backwards ripple growing larger the more time passes.
It's just not a happy record.
The Zoltars wallow in those mellow feelings of depair without getting morbid - far from it - they seems to be able to be ok with sharing this internal battle ending up with great tracks from doubt and failure.

“Here In My Room” begins the album with a lament to staying inside - and he’s torn, like most sentiments on this record. The narrator knows it's good for him but he still can’t bring himself to get out the door. Jared makes it sound great though, his solemn piano strikes echoing throughout this space. The massive guitars and chorus feel like an internal revelation. This becomes important, this simple act of leaving a house is a labored over decision. Nothing can be taken lightly and the first track places this far away from the carefree summer pop caregory, far away from lush psych harmonies and fuzzy guitars. "Fear Not Death" is their trademark somber sound. The way this vocal is distanced and barely sung as if he's going to make the absolute least amount of effort to deliver this. The melody is strong and thought out but he’ll be damned if it's going to be given up that easily, giving you all the clues you need. He's harmonizing with himself in the haziest slow motion blur psych rooted in the Velvet Underground repetition. Picking abnormal rhythms and sticking them out long enough until they're something else. "Don't Want You To Go Away" opens on a slow, brushed electric with long reverb piano strikes that are so specific to them. There’s no one else that would go straight for this forlorn sound nailing down this unique take on melancholy. Like a goth Real Estate The Zoltars are a textbook example for not blasting away as fast and hard as possible to evoke emotion. He's got me second guessing all kinds of punk records, his fragile vocal almost disappearing in these melodies. He can do incredible things with hardly anything, the sign of a great songwriter. Every instinct is to pour it on and he takes it all away.

"I Was Outside" finally makes it out the door, hardly singing with the instrumentation drowned into the background. Gently pressed keys on a piano and the backup vocal fades in not breaking in on the moment. You're leaning in - "All my favorite people are dead?" You get that feeling like on Antenna to the Afterworld, this record can't help but avoid the gushing, flowery psych and embrace a dark place that's inspiring even if it’s not going to get you out of bed. You just want to stay under Jared’s smothering, heavy warm blanket. The last track, "Walking Through The Dark" is a lullaby, an old folksong that sums this all up, and I'm talking about more than just a record. Sometimes you are just that clueless, jumping headfirst into a relationship or starting a family. And you have to move forward blindly, not thinking about it too much. It's not faith, I don't get a religious sensibility from the Zoltars, I don't think they think there’s a higher power at work it’s instead looking inside to find the things that keep you going every day.

Get this from CQ Records.

7Inches - Episode 13

We talked to Justin from CQ Records about his latest single from Broncho "It's On" that comes out today. He pressed their first record on vinyl and those guys are working on another full length that should be out later this year. We talk about his previous releases from The French Inhales, Bottle Service, Love Collector and the Zoltars.

In the news we cover a Johnny Cash found track, Fred Armisten's various fake bands and a singles series coming out on Drag City - Hometown Heroes.

Jason's pick this week is Buck Biloxi and the Fucks on Holotrash Records. (The track included is from an upcoming single from Total Trash/Floridas Dying)

Darren's pick this week is on the Volcom Entertainment label - a split with Shockwave Riders and the Bitchen' bahas.

HOTTT NEWZ! Call 347-770-1469 + leave a voicemail

Bonus announcement from Velocity of Sound about an upcoming release.

Itunes page here.

The Zoltars "Live Like Dragons" on CQ Records

Real Numbers, The Johnny Ill Band, The Muslims and The Zoltars are reasons why I started writing about singles almost ten years ago. I would have never come across these guys if it weren’t for poking around looking for stuff to talk about for the next day’s post. Ever since Gang of Four’s Entertainment! I’ve been chasing that standard of primitive politics and, although not working in the same post punk sound, this group has been travelling the same road in contemporary ways. The Zoltars specifically have carved out a loose psych feel with creepy monotone style that says, “We are the ghosts of your future.”

"All My Friends" on the A-Side reminded me the reason I loved these guys was because of their repetitive jangly rhythms and anti melodic vocals from Jared. He’s got such a emotionless style that shouldn’t work, but tell that to Matt Lamkin of Soft Pack. These guys are also reminiscent of west coast’s Wounded Lion with less of a party boy, tongue in cheek sound. They are honestly stilted like the Feelies, with a jittery, manic sound, basic as anything with no tricks. They hit on a “Roadrunner” sound there's nothing really that different in the end except everything you can’t name. The way it feels so easy and familiar. I guess because it’s a revelation the way they put this together and seem to sway in this see saw rhythm forever. It’s a typed love letter to friends which gets emotional because they try to avoid that sentimentality.(?) "Heroin Thunder" gets strumming rhythms into a groove and plod along like boxcars, rocking back and forth. Then they hit this chorus of "Heroin Thunder" lyrically a great contradiction of course. They would put those two things together separated across stereo channels. The mix is crazy with left side guitar harmonies plinking out in a slightly higher range than the right which is all rhythm blasting away. The track is ominous without hinting at danger in the vocals.

I like people who don't like you / I like people who don’t like people / I like when they don’t take phone calls

The Zoltars don’t mince words or try anything fancy on those guitars, or hit that tambourine in anything but a stompy percussion. They don’t even push the volume or raise anything more than a whisper. Why? Because they don’t have anything to prove. They hold back and wait for those measured epic moments that they’ve they're earned.

B-Side’s "In the Basement" takes a slow strumming tact with huge garage echo on Jared, they raise the volume of these distortions for the end of a verse and go quiet again. The timid inherent quietness he delivers in a higher falsetto gives you a false sense of calm. A Beach Boys lull pop unless you start paying attention because they are always turning this stuff on its head. “In the Basement” could be just as easily about a kidnapping. There's lyrics about dying and getting old, so specific that it makes them great, their razor sharp point of view, like an updated, cold Nodzzz sound. Taking a practical look at pop and why it doesn't always have to be about the opposite sex and heartbreak. There's a lot of weird sides to human nature and The Zoltars are into the darker, stripped down ones.

Get this from CQ Records. Just saw they have a full length recorded coming soon.

The Zoltars on Sundae Records

The Zoltars are a 2 piece from Austin, TX and have that relaxed west coast minimal sound of Wounded Lion, or Brooklyns own junk punkers, German Measles or the slack rock Jacuzzi Boys from the bottom coast...basically, this minimal garage sound isn't tied to any sort of geography, they happen to be from Austin, but this sound is coming from all sides lately.

In "Party at the Batcave", they take something so pop culturally forbidden as the Batman franchise and turn it into a funny, but not gimmicky song. Like Wounded Lion got away with songs about Degobah, it's ridiculous on paper, but the fact they even tried to enter such geek territory is totally punk rock. Or like Nodzzz, their naif songs about karaoke, their naive changes...the amount of heart it takes to get you to listen for more than one hit is amazing.
They use a thumping tom rhythm with just a little distortion on the guitar, with that sloppy, we're having too much fun delivery. But A duo is forced to be minimal by design, then they pick these idiosyncratic topics so obscure it's almost an inside joke.

"Voodoo" then takes this in a surf, monotone direction...with all the art brut of the Fall. It's a dirty garage minimal scuzzy sound. Hardly sung vocals, like pulling teeth, it sounds like it takes a great effort to get these guys together and record to tape, but a great example of creating something compelling out of 2 notes; their back and forth, high low high low, the vocals even follow that up and down melody on B-Sides, "Misanthrope".

Once we finally get to Homicide, they take this primal, raw sound and translate it into the content as well. It's the basic info, she hates this dude, wants to kill him....and well I won't ruin the end.
Here's another simple guitar melody with minimal drums. The Zoltars are constantly having to fight against the minimalism. To work with next to nothing. You have to combine Prinzhorn Dance School with No Age to get this kind of post punk and their satisfying quiet loud punch.
There's nothing better than a primal duo sound. They wear those influence on their sleeve but then their talent makes something simple the best.
Just like that whole movement in food, on Top Chef or whatever. Get back to simplicity. Your grandma made the best cookies because it was the basic ingredients done classically.. the way it's been done forever.
The Zoltars have a simple recipe, guitars+drums, a little bit of harmony with a dash of the everyday mundane, and then punk the whole thing out with some nihilism. The humor will draw you in and then the garage stomp keeps you listening.

They have this scribble high school notebook sleeve, from Booneboone.com and like the Intelligence, Mess Folk or Fresh and Onlys it's a perfect symbol of their formative years single, it's freshman class where you haven't learned all the history that's going to teach you what exactly not to do anyway.

In an art class once there was this guy I was so jealous of because he would just come up with this complete bat shit crazy stuff. Scripts that would be impossible to shoot, paintings that you couldn't paint - I wanted to think like that. To be so completely separated from reality, that only the idea mattered. The Zoltars actually pull this off musically without even breaking a sweat, they've come up with an EP of four songs that stand alongside Wounded Lion or German Measles. Damn them, this is good.

I know 5 years from now I'll still be listening to NoDzzz and singing along like a maniac and it will lead me again to this single. I can hear they have to be genuinely nice guys even with the songs about Homicide they sound like they just picked up their instruments in the best way. They haven't learned anything about bad music yet. If you can catch a band at this point, it's pure gold. This EP is The Zoltars "I don't want to smoke marijuana"...the start of something good.

Get this one from Sundae Records...only 5 bucks!