The Zutons’ debut album, “Who Killed The Zutons,” can best be described as a patchwork quilt that might not look perfect but it keeps the listener warm at night.
The album, a mixture of country, rock and funk melded together in a brilliant-yet-slightly flawed release, manages to hold the listener’s attention with horns and lead vocals that can be slurred and troublesome but refreshing at a time when over-polished music is abundant. It is released on Epic Records.
The first single, “Pressure Point,” can be heard in the background of a current Levi’s jeans commercial. In a statement, the band described the song as a New Orleans soul classic that captures the feeling one has the first 10 minutes when arriving home from work and wanting to kill someone.
The single describes a man’s inability to cope with pressure. With lyrics such as, “I can’t get this pressure point outta my head, I’ve paid all my bills and I’ve acted so well, and I ain’t been cheatin’, there’s nothin to tell,” the band will never win a prize for poetry, but it will – at the very least – give insight to a sense of restlessness experienced on a daily basis.
Overall, the album is an adventure of clichéd feelings and lyrics that are touching when accompanied with the band’s tempo changes. However, the album’s best offerings occur when it controls the pacing and refrains from quickening the tempo.
“Railroad,” one of the slower songs on the album, is the account of a railroad worker who left home to find work in China. At its heart, this is a love song that mixes folk-sounding acoustic guitars and raspy vocals with the jam-band quality that the band had strung together through the previous five tracks.
The song laments going home to a true love. The lyrics “I’ve saved every penny my girl, I hope that you have waited out there, for all my love when I get home,” only partially accomplishes this feeling, which is an example of how this album comes close to perfection, but fails.
By far the best single on the album is “Nightmare Part II,” a song that is both poetic in its lyrics and catchy with hooks planted in the background of the track.
The song delves into a description of a nightmare that comments on different music genres that The Zutons successfully try to avoid.
“While the blood was running thick, and the goths all ran off naked, and the punks all started crying, and the rockers they all fainted, ‘cos there was no denying, that the hands of human nature, had surely come to blows,” the band croons.
The weakest point on this release is the first track, “Zuton Fever.” The track falls prey to narcissism as the band sings about how the Zuton fever becomes addicting. The song’s lyrics are “You know I get a funny feeling, like an epidemic running through my head, know I’ve got that feeling that’s the best, got the Zuton fever in my head.” When examining these lyrics it is difficult to decipher what the band means – either a Zuton is addicting or the band is addicting. However, neither of these interpretations lends justice to the rest of the track, which seems more radio- friendly than the tracks that follow it.
In the long run, “Who Killed the Zutons” is an album that will grow on the listener and offer a genre-defying sense of self, which lets the band stand out as more than a one-trick-pony jam-band.
