Sound Stuff 2025
Flying in the face of adversity, English ensemble deliver on a long-gestating promise of progressive ambition.
Zen Orchestra
When this Luton-based band set off selecting a name for the journey they were to embark on three decades prior to a proper release of its results, intuitively meditative state of mind didn’t feel like a harbinger of doom, yet that was what the collective would eventually require to issue their debut album. Formed in the mid-’90s and failing to sign a satisfying record deal, the group went on hiatus and joined forces anew ten years later to persevere through further existential hindrances before the seven wonders of “Zen Orchestra” gelled into something larger than the sum of the players’ influences. And even once everything seemed to become as smooth as the musicians wished it to be, with a permanent guitarist joining their ranks, one of the original quartet’s founders passed away leaving a few tracks unfinished.
With stopping not an option anymore, because ceasing could amount to an insult to their fallen friend’s memory, bringing the platter to the listener was important on many levels, and complying to the ensemble’s ethical policy made it all immensely profound in terms of two-part concept and fiercely detailed delivery. However, though the Brits’ love for spacious pieces is explicitly announced, none of the mini-epics on offer dwells on time merely for the sake of instrumental prowess. None – apart from the cosmic “Time” that, of course, deals with temporal matters, dynamically building on the belligerent balladry of the organ-bolstered “Faces” which flaunts the band’s mastery of anthemic harmonies and infectious riffs. Still, “Minds” opens the album in a more cinematic manner, first setting the scene via dialogue submerged in a shimmer and then energetically bursting into view to stun the audience with a tight weave of James Stephenson’s axe and Steve Smith’s ivories, whereas Mark Barrett’s dry voice and claustrophobic sound design are spanked and punctuated by the late Stewart Milner’s bass and Steve Rix’s drums until piano splashes expand the overall vista into a quasi-symphonic panorama.
Surprisingly, “Billionaires” injects muscular rocking into this perspective, as synthesizers dance around Alberto Rigoni’s thrumming four-string, only to turn it into dramatic dirge, a tragedy of progressive scope which will be compromised once “Circles” adds pop transparency to thematic sequences that see various compositions start in those preceding them and overlapping with others. And if “Heartless” compresses a similar process of despondency morphing into optimism to present hymnal front, “Coda” accesses the record’s beginning with a fresh blast of joie de vivre to steer “Zen Orchestra” towards a climactic denouement. “Zen Orchestra” is a quiet triumph of spirit and, hopefully, not a one-off release.
****
