Fuzz Lightyear - Zero Guilt
Nice Swan Recordings
Leeds' Fuzz Lightyear release their debut project on Nice Swan Recordings. The four-piece are comprised of Ben Parry(vocals, guitar), Josh Taylor(drums), Varun Govil(bass) and Alex Calder(synth, guitar).
Featuring six tracks - three previously released singles in the run-up to the project, and three new tracks - Zero Guilt takes a fresh slate and casts a grizzly net across the current music landscape. Gazed upon through an industrial air, Zero Guilt exists under the eye of a murky, smog-filled sky.
Feedback and audio fuzz lull us into the world of Zero Guilt. The hoover-sonics of opening track "White and Green" suck up the meat between the listeners ears and transports it to a feral state.
'Hopeful, I hear a sound
Hopeful, oh, what a sound
Restless, our arms feel so weak
Restless, we all try to sleep'
Speaking on the EP, frontman Ben Parry stated: “‘Zero Guilt’ is a bit of a time capsule for us as a band. We’ve lived alongside these songs for the last 5 or so years, and since both us and the songs have grown a fair bit. These are those songs in their rawest form, the closest to inception they could’ve been. This was our last hurrah as a tried and true guitar band."
image courtesy of Fuzz Lightyear’s Bandcamp.
One of said three lead singles in "Sit Awake" leads us into the last of said three singles in "Aberfan". It's where the most sonically compassionate moments of Zero Guilt take place. The edge and brute force found on "Green and White" and "Sit Awake" finds itself toned down for more spacious and reminiscent pastures. Sentiments of Echo & the Bunnymen ghostly swirl around said track; Discipline-era King Crimson also hangs heavy. Said brute force can't be held at bay for long as the track moves towards more dissonant, ship-splitting seas.
"///" brings with it an actively-ambient, dusty air. The pace picks up like a factory on tracks hurtling down a fluorescently-lit tunnel. It rises in volume as the track comes close to its endpoint - the first time listening to the project saw myself wondering what demonic forces found their way inside my volume tab, but it was just the song tipping into the red; confirmed by further listens. The fluorescently-lit tunnel shoots us right into "Berlin, 1885" - Jeez Louise. Said demonic forces were certainly inside of this one. Like pirates putting on a showcase at sea, Fuzz Lightyear batten the hatches and push forth through their creative ways of dealing with the immensely weighty weather.
The project crawls - scrawls - to a scathing finish with "Christ Alive"; the title says it all.
Take no prisoners; feel no fear - zero guilt.
