Zombi: "Spirit Animal"

I didn't listen to heavy metal during my teen years, and I hadn't really discovered punk or indie music yet. What I DID listen to was music in the crossover zone between prog rock, cheesy synth music, soundtrack music and new age - and I particularly loved German synth band Tangerine Dream. Which is why I totally 'get' the new Pittsburgh band Zombi, which I was introduced to recently. Man, I thought I had given up this kind of stuff, which is admittedly somewhat cheesy, but Zombi is such a glorious recreation of an era.

You can visit their MYSPACE page and listen to long excerpts from a few tracks.

Here's an Amazon user review, which pretty much sums up this album:

"Allow me to introduce you to the new force in space synth. Hailing from Pittsburgh, the town that brought us the original Night Of The Living Dead from the master of that craft, George Romero. Zombi have taken their name either from the African god rainbow serpent, or more likely from Romero's Dawn Of The Dead which was released in Italy and Spain as Zombi. ZOMBI the "space rock" duo from Pittsburgh have fashioned their music after the likes of Goblin, a 70s Italian prog/synth outfit which wrote many soundtracks for the giallo films of Dario Argento, and in particular, scored Romero's Dawn Of The Dead Italian "Zombi" version. ZOMBI the band here are also influenced by Tangerine Dream and the soundtracks of John Carpenter. If that doesn't pique your interest in this music, move on to other things now.

For those of you who are still reading, this album SPIRIT ANIMAL is Zombi's 3rd full length release (they also have thee EPs, starting from their original demo in 2002), out just last week. Keep in mind ZOMBI is a sort of "post-" outfit, in that they are strictly instrumental. I happened to get lucky enough to see them perform live here in Salt Lake a couple years ago, and these two guys lay down a powerful show, one of my friends described them as "Tangerine Dream with balls". That's not a bad description, as their drummer is on top of their game, striking hard and precisely with a heavy solid beat and dextrous fills. His partner keeps the synthesizer going full-tilt, and for some songs reached over and grabbed a bass guitar, laying in another dimension of groove with that. For two guys, ZOMBI will rock your world into a stunning display of a psychedelic space horror soundtrack for your mind. With SPIRIT ANIMAL, they have added another dimension to their roots by expanding upon the initial "horror soundtrack" inspiration and embarked on something I can only say is wholly their own. The cover of the album is a beautiful image of an African bull elephant charging the viewer head-on in a cloud of stampeded dust amidst a lightning storm. It conjures the spirit of the five songs contained within perfectly. These are long songs, three of which clock in at over 10 minutes, so be prepared to have your mind taken through a virtual odyssey of discovery with the chapters "Spirit Animal", "Spirit Warrior", "Earthly Powers", "Cosmic Powers", and the epic 17-minute "Through Time" as the closer. This time out, Zombi conjure up a stage as vast as the Serengeti. In choosing to focus their cinematic sound upon the themes of the ecology of earth, these guys have truly leapt out of their skins and into something much deeper and more rewarding than their earlier forays. Spirit Animal is a huge step forward for this band, and will easily help them lay claim as the Lich Kings of post-synth, and should bring together disparate fans of these various genres into a mutual audience that is a melting pot of both oldschool and the new. Hail Zombi and long may they reign undead. "