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 Caught in the Carousel - Music Reviews and More
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Zookeeper
Becoming All Things
Bellecitypop!
Zookeeper's "Snow In Berlin" is a loose-limbed pop colossal that comes cracking with such ambition and amplitude it immediately summons the sweeping epics found on The Waterboys' This Is The Sea or A Pagan Place. Replete with a swinging organ, sliding trumpet, well-placed trombone, wandering harmonica and a gushing poeticism ("Now lay surrender to Salvation Army vendors/Life insurance witch doctors/All these poor men in rich men's clothes") "Snow In Berlin" is the kind of massive and dominating number that some bands spend their whole lives pursuing. Although it is the unequivocal centerpiece of Becoming All Things, there are nine terrific others. Singer Chris Simpson (Mineral/The Gloria Record) comes across like Bob Geldof fronting a dreamier version of the Boomtown Rats, and his compositions range from sharp observational pop gems ("On Madison Way") to contemplative meditations on human existence ("Boy & The Street Choir"). Backed by his gifted and merry pop collective, Simpson, quite frankly, sounds like he can do just about anything. For example, the rootsy stomp of "Ballad Of My Friends" suggests Van Morrison; "On High" is spare and heart-wrenching; and the closer "Born With Things To Do" is a blissfully rag-tag number that finds Simpson confessing, "I haven't got the answers/But I'm asking all the time." Like The Waterboys' Mike Scott, Simpson is a musician gifted with craftsman-like precision, making every moment come smoldering with purpose.
The Big Music is back.
--Alex Green
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