The Beat Surrender

Over the last eight years or so Zero 7 have delivered three sumptuous albums of chilled out. downtempo folk infused music that has seen them building an army of fans and with Simple Things they arguably have an album that will stand the test of time alongside the best from Air and Massive Attack.

Unfortunately though from what I saw of them on the last tour, which was built around this rather limp album, they are currently searching around for a direction and sound that will keep them up where they want to be and are also short on the vocal front as well with Henry Binns taking on vocals on Everything Up (Zizou) to poor effect.

They do show on Pop Art Blue and Ghost Symbol that they can still cut it when they set their minds to it and we get other flashes of inspiration too with Count Me Out and Swing, but those tracks don’t do enough to paper over the vast cracks that this album reveals.

I hope they come back better and stronger than ever with the next album, I am a fan and it would be sad to see them meander off into the sunset with a follow up that lacks inspiration like Yeah Ghost, but deep down I get the feeling this is the sound of a band fading away rather burning out.