Hey, Zero 7 still exist. Did you know that? I have to admit I did not. The words "Zero 7" probably hadn't popped into my head for nigh on five years, around the time I last worked in a record store. I remember the duo's music (specifically 2004's When It Falls) making a good fallback when someone complained that Franz Ferdinand was a little too abrasive, Zero 7 being the downtempo act with the gall to debut well after the fad had peaked. Hey, it was that kinda store.
Zero 7 would probably like you to know that Yeah Ghost is some sort of omnivorous post-MP3 pop record, not downtempo. Zero 7 was probably better off identifying Yeah Ghost as downtempo, a genre where it's practically impossible to limbo under where the bar's been set for what constitutes "interesting music." Even your voracious consumer of vacuous VH1-style adult-alternative would still have to listen reeeeeeeally hard to find anything remotely exceptional about Yeah Ghost. The rest of us are S.O.L.
Yeah Ghost is one of those albums where it sounds like the band happened on a bargain sale for just-past-expiration fads and a few genuinely necrotic oldies. It's easy to feel generous when you've bought garbage cheap and in bulk. No Ghost track gets by on one bad idea when Zero 7 can give us two or three.
So "Mr McGee" treats us to some horrorshow mix of vaguely post-Amy Winehouse, generically sassy R&B vocals and a cod-glam/Marc Bolan beat that was at least marginally interesting when Goldfrapp swiped it from German techno six years ago. ("Medicine Man" more or less repeats the exact same formula without a hint of shame.) "Swing" is the sort of winsome nuevo twee-pop that turned the Juno soundtrack into a glorified ATM for its compilers, shoved through overly glossy George Martin pastiche that dangerously ups the saccharine level. "Everything Up (Zizou)" is low-impact dance-rock with every possible edge shorn off. "Sleeper" is the bad blog-house remix of rock band du jour. (I hear the Gossip, yr mileage may vary.) And the overall vibe is: Every 2000s trendlet must go!
All these reheated ideas wouldn't be so bad in the aggregate if the band attacked the material with the slightest verve, rather than the pop-slumming loop-heads they come off as here. The whole thing's like Basement Jaxx for the undemanding: all of the sonically-overstuffed, cross-genre shtick, none of the energy, wit, or timeliness that makes the Jaxx (or at least old Jaxx) more than channel-hopping thieves. About the only time Yeah Ghost comes to life is on the sleepy drift of "Ghost SYMbOL" (admittedly about one vocal sample from being a straight Burial jack) and "Solastalgia" (ditto, but maybe Fennesz for Banana Republic in-store play?), which at least proves Zero 7's instincts for make-weight downtempo haven't deserted them.
So wait, I hear you asking, it's slightly unclear: Is Yeah Ghost any good? You know, as art? Well, the cover's pretty. But as music, whether pop or downtempo or lukewarm filler for marking the hours until death? Okay, it's not really very good at all. But it's there nonetheless. If you happen to work in one of the country's few remaining record stores, it will probably prove useful in placating those who don't want to be harassed by Lady Gaga as they browse. Sadly I may be among them.
