Like master genre film director John Carpenter, whose film scores serve as major influences on them, Pittsburgh’s Zombi were pioneers in their field. Years before the now-flourishing synthwave scene began attracting attention, the duo of bassists/keyboardist Steve Moore and drummer Anthony Paterra were responsible for a steady stream of synthesizer-driven instrumental music that recalled the soundtracks of 70s and 80s horror and sci-fi films. In 2015, it’s not hard to imagine Zombi attracting the kind of dedicated cult following contemporary synthwave artists like Perturbator and GosT enjoy. However, in the early to mid 2000s when the band was most prolific, there simply wasn’t much of a market for this style of music. Even being signed to underground powerhouse Relapse Records in 2004 didn’t do much to expand Zombi’s audience. In fact, the debt the band racked up taking touring advances from Relapse is the primary reason Moore and Paterra eventually had to put the band on hiatus to focus on more lucrative endeavors.
Zombi’s last album, Escape Velocity, was released in 2011, and, in the four years that separated that album from the recently released Shape Shift, an overabundance of artists in the same vein has sprung up. It’s easy to imagine Zombi being swallowed by the very sea of artists they helped inspire, but these two guys have several advantages that set them apart from the hordes of pretenders to the synthwave throne. For one thing, they still have the backing of Relapse Records. It’s true that their affiliation with the label was very nearly the downfall of the band, but Shape Shift is being released at a time when there’s a substantial hunger for this type of music in the underground music scene. Earlier this year, GosT’s Behemoth was even the best selling album in Bandcamp’s Metal tag for several weeks and eventually became one of the site’s best selling digital downloads ever. With Relapse’s money and PR clout behind them, Zombi shouldn’t have a problem getting their name back into the public consciousness and attracting new fans.
Another thing the band has over the rest of the synthwave community is great songwriting chops. Moore and Paterra are better composers than most, if not all, of their musical contemporaries. Much of synthwave’s weakness comes from the musicians’ desire to sound as much like retro movie or videogame soundtracks as possible. This means that there’s a lot of filler on any given album and much of the music is hackneyed. The idea of recording the score to a sci-fi movie that doesn’t exist is interesting in theory, but, in practice, it’s frequently boring. Film scores are meant to work as accompaniment to visuals and dialogue, but if those visuals and dialogue only exist in the composers head then listeners are missing out on crucial pieces of information. Zombi’s music doesn’t suffer in this way since each song is meant to be a composition that can stand on its own merits. Moore and Paterra aren’t mimicking a musical style so much as creating songs that sound fresh while still paying homage to the musicians that inspire them.
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In the album opening “Pillars of the Dawn” you can hear the influence of Goblin and Fabio Frizzi – particularly the latter’s work on the Lucio Fulci films The Beyond and City of the Living Dead – but neither track ever sounds derivative. Likewise, “Total Breakthrough,” “Diffraction Zone,” and “Metaverse” all feature the sort of percussive, swaggering bass lines that would sound right at home in a John Carpenter film score, but they’re just one piece of a larger puzzle which also includes elements of prog, space rock, and krautrock. Zombi’s music will definitely appeal to lovers of old horror movies, but there’s much to enjoy if you like Kraftwerk or Hawkwind as well.
The pair’s songwriting prowess is enough to set them apart from their competitors, but the fact that they’re an actual band distinguishes them from the pack as well. So much synthwave sounds flat and soulless because it’s created exclusively inside someone’s laptop using FL Studio. Moore and Paterra use analog synths, a bass guitar, and a drum set to record, and the difference is obvious. There’s an organic feel to all of the songs on Shape Shift that wouldn’t be possible to recreate with a computer. You can hear the notes being picked on the bass guitar, and just try programming a drum machine to mimic Paterra’s jazzy kit work in “Shadow Hand.” The use of actual instruments and analog synth also adds a level of warmth and humanity also presents a nice counter-point to the frequent digital harshness of synthwave.
Zombi’s not a metal, or even metal-adjacent, band by any stretch of the imagination, but don’t let that scare you off. Synthwave has attracted a strong following in the metal community and that’s due in large part to the genre’s emphasis on creating dark atmospheres. Shape Shift is one of the best representations of the style and it would be a shame if it got overlooked by music fans. It’s been a while since Moore and Paterra have worked together to write this kind of music, but they definitely haven’t lost their creative spark.
