Like so many 20 year olds before him, Zion Battle found something transcendent in Joshua Tree National Park. Since age 16, Battle had been working towards becoming a musician, studying for a time at CalArts and New York’s The New School. Then, in 2024, he left behind his academic training to begin making music as Katzin, exploring a more intimate sound shaped by a healthy love for the bedroom dream pop of early Orchid Tapes releases and the fuzz of 1990s indie rock. He linked with friend and producer Max Morgen, and the duo temporarily decamped to California and set up a makeshift DIY studio near Joshua Tree to fine-tune Katzin’s debut.
The bright and sweet Buckaroo radiates sincerity. Battle’s biggest strength is his youthful glee and the way it pours out of him when he pushes his vocals far out of his range on “Hope” or concludes opener “Tightrope” with exuberant yelps. “Our minds/Are murdering doubt/Fuck you/I’m going out on the town,” he sings with barely contained rage on “Cowboy” before the song bursts open at the chorus, invoking Broken Social Scene at their most cacophonous. Yet there’s a warmth to every song that’s watching fireflies twinkle against a summer sunset.
Morgen produced the album and played on practically every track, contributing nearly all the auxiliary instrumentation that allows Buckaroo’s simple acoustic core to bloom. Twinkling banjo plucking and delicate, fairy-like piano notes dot “Anna”; the digital delay that smears across “Cottonmouth” gives the song’s weary disorientation a physical presence. The details layer like a Georges Seurat painting, especially compared to earlier, more embryonic versions of these songs. Those are nice too, but that version of the band probably never would have made anything as fun or intense as ’90s alt-rock radio ode “Nantucket,” and Buckaroo is better for it.
More than anything, Buckaroo reflects a teenager taking their first steps into a bigger world. Buried under reverb and twinkling effects are moments of first-love confusion (“Anna”) and concern for a friend who’s since recovered from a coma (“Wake Up Rubin”). The sparse lyrics that Battle favors sometimes work against him—failing to supply sufficient emotional heft on every track, or else demonstrating minor immaturity (“She’s a tall order/A tall glass of beer/And when you’re near/You know I’ll ride you right back home,” on “All Hat, No Cattle,” is just bravado masking inexperience). But you can see the vision to build homespun pop into something grander, like Julia Brown or Alex G did a decade ago. Battle’s not quite yet at that level, but flaws and missteps are part of anyone’s journey into adulthood. The charm and glow of Buckaroo outweigh the growing pains.
