Zolof The Rock & Roll Destroyer

Schematics

[3.5/5]

There is a very telling moment in the incredibly catchy chorus of “Death Or Radio,” one of the best selections on Zolof The Rock & Roll Destroyer’s long-awaited follow-up to 2003’s power-pop primer Jalopy Go Far. Delivered with all the pixie-voiced pop vigor they have become known for during the past five years, the song reaches its climax as vocalist/keyboardist Rachel Minton proclaims, “Let’s hold hands and listen to shitty bands/Tossing records out the window!” While undeniably adorable, the sentiment holds a hint of something darker, marking the gradual loss of the unstoppable zest for everything that defined the band’s work up until now. Musically, Schematics is classic Zolof: A driving rhythm section propelling the cheesiest, catchiest synthesizers this side of 1989, coupled with Minton’s caustic/sugar-sweet melodies and guitarist Vince Ratti’s perfected chord punctuations. It’s the subject matter that distinguishes songs like “Can’t Stand It”-a thinly veiled middle finger to the band’s former record label-from the brash goofiness of old fan favorites like “The Hot Situation.” Hearing Minton rail against the injustices suffered by the band over the past four years couldn’t have sounded better, and while little has changed in their sonic direction, why should it? (REIGNITION) Sam Sutherland

ROCKS LIKE:

Reggie And The Full Effect’s Greatest Hits 1984-1987

The Rentals’ Return Of The Rentals

The Stereo’s No Traffic

IN-STORE SESSION WITH VOCALIST/KEYBOARDIST RACHEL MINTON

You’ve been sitting on this record for a while. What held up its release?
We had a lot of problems with our last label [Eyeball Records]. We had finished half the record, and we just hit a wall with our talks with them. We stopped doing the record because we really didn’t know what the point was. It kept being pushed back on their list of priorities, and we really didn’t understand what they wanted from us. We just decided to finish it anyway, the way we wanted to. You know, “If we have a label, we do, and if we don’t, we don’t.” It was completed about a year-and-a-half ago. Once we finally got off our label, we had it mastered and put it out ourselves.

You’re definitely exploring some darker lyrical imagery with this album, like on “Can’t Stand It.” Was that a conscious decision?
I think we’ve always had underlying darker images in our music, where you’d hear something and be like, “Did they just say that?” But with our previous releases, we never came forward and blatantly said what we were feeling. We had trouble being honest and actually putting forth what we were trying to say. With this album, we just put it out there. We had been going through a lot of stuff with the label, and our writing was basically done on the road, dealing with all this business stuff and the negative side of the music industry. I think that came through on this record.

Were you at all concerned with fans reacting adversely to your newfound negativity?
All the elements of Zolof are there. We don’t play anything we don’t have fun playing, and that’s always going to be poppy and fun-sounding. I think people like hearing what you’re really thinking and hearing things they can relate to, and that’s not always a positive thing.

A lot of bands shy away from being labeled “mature,” but you’ve been embracing the term recently.
As a band, we’re a little more jaded now, and we understand things a little better. We were living in our own little world when we were doing our earlier stuff, and now we’ve become a lot more jaded by the real world. That comes with recognizing different things, growing up and maturing. Like “Death Or Radio”; that’s a pretty jaded song. There’s a lot of shitty bands that are popular and a lot of shitty bands that are underground. There’s just so many bands, and a lot of them are shitty. –Sam Sutherland