I am going to go out on a limb and say you have never heard of this band. Which is a tragedy, because Zeus is one of the best acts I’ve heard this year. Their debut LP, on Toronto’s Arts and Crafts label, is a timeless piece of rock craftsmanship. Many of their songs are written with three-part vocal harmonies, which echoes The Beatles, and and is a sound that has unfortunately all but disappeared from rock music. Lead vocals are traded between three of the four band members. With many of the instrumentals echoing early 70’s hits like “The Joker” and “Layla”, the band as a whole has a tendency of sounding like what The Beatles might have recorded had they not broken up in 1969. That’s not to say that they are a revival band. They somehow sound very fresh and contemporary, even while their musical language is often fifty years old.
Their claim to fame is that they are the backing band for the side project of Jason Collett, when Collett is not recording with Broken Social Scene. This puts them a few steps back from the limelight: they’re still too indie for Pitchfork. I discovered them on one of La Blogotheque’s Take Away Shows. They had shown up to film Jason Collett, who eked out one nervous song before relinquishing the guitar to his backing band. With no preparation, and with cigarette still in hand, the band rocks through the streets of Montreal, belting their three part harmonies from fire escapes and setting off imaginary pyrotechnics in the park. These videos are a blast to watch, and you should check them out here.
After seeing how energetic they were in their videos, I was just a little disappointed when I first dropped the needle in the album. While most of the cuts on “Say Us” are spot on, there’s an unfinished and slightly restrained quality to the opening tracks that suggest that the band is more comfortable in front of an audience than in front of a studio microphone. However, the band seems to relax and open up about halfway through the third cut, “Kindergarten.” The second half of the A-side is absolute gold. “Greater Times On The Wayside” is the catchiest one minute song I’ve heard since the B-side of Abbey Road, and it transitions seamlessly into “River By The Garden”, a sweeping murder ballad that is easily the best song on the album. The B-side opens with “You Gotta Teller”, a raucous number that should have been in Scott Pilgrim and wasn’t. “Marching Through Your Head” is the closest thing the band have had to a hit, with a music video and an appearance on their EP “Sounds Like Zeus”. “Heavy On Me” builds gradually into a power ballad that could almost be from U2, and is immediately followed by the incredibly light and perky “At The Risk Of Repeating”, which closes the album.
I can’t help but smile when I listen to this album. Zeus sounds like they are having such a good time when they perform, and that joy is contagious. Derrick Belcham said it best at La Blogotheque: “We didn’t know Zeus before we filmed them, but today, after hearing them play on a fire escape, in the street, around a fountain, and later that night on stage, we are still wondering why this band isn’t filling concert halls the world over.” I’m left wondering that myself.
You can also stream some cuts on this album on their Facebook page.
