Given the scarcity of African-American-fronted indie rock bands specializing in industrial-decayed, atonal soul music, the knee-jerk reaction to hearing Dragons of Zynth is to compare them to their friends and mentors TV on the Radio. DoZ vocalist Aku and his twin brother/guitarist Akwetey O.T. were part of the drum-circle chorus on "Let the Devil In", from TVotR's 2006 masterwork Return to Cookie Mountain. The Dragons' debut album, Coronation Thieves, was produced by TVotR's David Sitek. Both of the aforementioned records open with songs that mention lovers and war (TVotR's "I Was a Lover" versus DoZ's "War Lover"). The bands even share celebrity fans in David Bowie and Massive Attack, the latter of which have enlisted DoZ's services for their next album. But in spite of both bands' preference for discordant guitar tones, elastic vocals, and fractured rhythms, to say Dragons of Zynth sound like TV on the Radio is telling only half the story: They sound like TV on the Radio played backwards.
The unwieldy Coronation Thieves is not so much the sound of a first album as a first rehearsal: random ideas-- from space-age soul ballads to mutant prog-metal-- are thrown onto the floor, with songs forming (or deforming) through a dissonant relationship between melody, treble, and rhythm. Sitek's pancaked production emphasizes the band's feral nature by placing guitarist Akwetey's piercing squeals and drummer Bzza's hiccupping beats up front, forcing vocalist Aku to mediate between the two. But the lack of fidelity can make the Dragons sound like a bigger mess than they probably intend to be. With an unfortunate lack of bass in the mix, the contorted Black Sabbath riffage on "Breaker" and the percussive spazz-jazz odyssey "Who Rize Above" (evidence of the brothers' prior schooling under saxophonist Yusef Lateef) simply make a racket when, with a beefier presentation, they could leave craters.
But as Coronation Thieves plays out, you get that sense that even the Dragons' directionless turns are all part of the same process of bringing shape to their cosmic slop. Where songs like "Breaker" and "Funky Genius" respectively isolate the band's dual affinities for berserker metal and dubby electro-sonics, "Get Off" forges a natural union between the two, with trip-hoppy, sax-slathered verses yielding to an amped-up, fist-pump chorus. And though mid-album standout "Take It to Ride" boasts Aku's most gonzo performance-- like Dizzee Rascal spitting over an early Butthole Surfers track-- its circular, synthetic Asian tin-drum melody puts the song's maniacal energy into an intensely hypnotic focus, enhanced by Akwetey's shot-gunned guitar breaks.
But even these moves toward structure don't prepare you for the surprise that is "Anna Mae", a gorgeous shoegazing lullaby-- with a starry-eyed chorus beamed in from Smashing Pumpkins' "1979"-- that strips down Dragons of Zynth's sci-fi façade to explore that most unattainable of fantasies: falling in love with a rich girl. Though it arrives caked in a haze of distortion, it's the only track here that sounds like it first came to life as a fully formed song, as opposed to an experiment in search of one. And it also raises the distinct possibility that Dragons of Zynth aren't just in this to be TV on the Radio's friends, but their Interscope label mates, too.
