Zero have made an odd, joyful and coherent debut, despite lurching from post-rock tension to whimsical melody, covering Devo, and borrowing vocal styles from at least two eccentric Englishmen.
Zero includes former members of the group Bastard, and given those names, it is perhaps not too surprising that their accessible and well-structured sound is tinged with an alluring nihilistic nonchalance. The opener "Big Screen / Flat People" has fuzzy, chiming guitar as well as stumbling rhythms familiar to anyone who loves The Fall (an association reinforced by the weird approximation of trademark Mark E Smith vocals: snotty, languid, and yet laser-like). Indeed, a whole album of that would have been absolutely fine with me. But Jokebox shows that Zero has more than one trick up its sleeve.
"Go Stereo" uses a repetitive post-rock riff-and-shuffle to back lyrics about the technical information related to some equipment. "Derby" could slot nicely onto Appliance's unfairly overlooked record Manual. Oddest of all is "Drag Queen Blues," a song that—had Vivian Stanshall pulled a Lord Lucan-style disappearance instead of perishing in a house fire—would have Bonzo Dog Band fans scouring France for a glimpse of the blighter. The loony vocals sound like Viv's whole Vegas-rock-n-roll-in-an-echo-chamber shtick before they accelerate completely into audio-madness.
The instrumental "The Desire and the Importance of Failing" has ticking percussion and a pedal-steel glide that put me in mind of The Books; "Crosby and Garfunkel" is as light and airy as its title suggests; "Pride of the Kids" recovers from worryingly anthemic guitar chords, and mutates into an equally urgent and fluid cousin of Life Without Buildings' "The Leanover"; and the final piece, "Cars, Buses, Etc," meanders through a nocturnal terrain in the footsteps of William S. Burroughs and Robert Quine. The best of Jokebox would have made a very fine EP and there is plenty of promise here. Encore.
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