Zola Jesus started to gain quite a bit of buzz during the latter half of 2009 with her debut album “The Spoils” as well as a few EPs. She was talked about quite frequently on blogs and internet music sites but was not too widely heard. There’s good reason for this too. Zola Jesus is the primarily solo project of Nika Roza Danilova who is an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin Madison. “The Spoils” was recorded in her apartment using very lo-fi, think lots of noisy tape hiss, production methods. While lo-fi production is not a bad quality, think Guided by Voices, Zola Jesus was meant for a much bigger and fuller sound a sound that has been achieved on their latest release Stridulum.
The album opens with “Night”. Numerous voices whisper over a droning synth note but then that voice appears. Despite being such a tiny woman, Danilova’s voice is massive and operatic emerging from ten years studying opera. On her last album her voice was largely disguised by noisy fuzz but here it is the drawing factor. She is backed on the tracks by dark, haunting keyboard waves and an always pounding drum machine. Surprising though is how huge the drum machine sounds. The drums throughout the album are akin to soldiers marching to war, encompassing and always pushing forward.
Zola Jesus’s music has a lot in common with industrial and neo-folk plus there’s a very gothic atmosphere in her vocals and throughout the music. From this meager description and reading about her music elsewhere online this probably will turn anyone interested in her music. What needs to be made clear is just how catchy her music is. It’s haunting and beautiful sure but what stands out after even just one listen is to how big her hooks are. On “I Can’t Stand”, one of the best songs on the EP, I couldn’t help but get sucked into the chorus. Her lyrics may be simple, the repeated claim in the chorus “that it’s going to be alright” but this grounds the music in accessibility rather than gothic melodramatic topics like vampires. Most of the songs seem to be about love and by keeping the lyrics simple anyone can identify with these songs.
Granted that there is a very present gothic feel to Zola Jesus, Danilova is a diva but not in the vein of Miley Cyrus, there really is something for everyone on Stridulum. For instance, on “Manifest Destiny” when the synths and drums build and she belts out the chorus all apprehensions about “gothic industrial” music are out the window.
4.5/5
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