Album Review: Zomby - With Love

When I've accidentally abandoned a coffee without taking the last slug, or if work calls when I'm trying to get off to Transformer porn, I get filled with a rage that unsettles the rest of the day, leaving me snarling at traffic lights and picking fights with my boyfriend. It's not unreasonable – I just like to finish things I've started.

Woe-be-fucking-tide, then, anyone who gets in my way after I've listened to Zomby's third album. Y'see, there is so much murky wonderment going on over 33 tracks which connect together with the intricate complexity of an Escher lithograph. The first disc controls the light, moving with sinister intent in the bleepy shadows with nothing so painfully crass as a diva vocal in sight. The second turns the lights even lower and drops the BPMs to mope in introversion. Sounds pretty awesome, doesn't it? It is.

The problem is, with an average length of two-and-a-half minutes apiece, every time you start to get blissfully lost in a highlight (and there are many), it ends so abruptly and moves on with the grace of a belligerent coffee thief.

When Zomby (yet another 'mysterious' electronic artist hiding behind a mask – isn't it time we had a hero who's always completely naked?) recently told Pitchfork, “I'm not a big nostalgist,” he's belied by the encyclopedic electronic references that strafe With Love. Acid, dubstep and grime occupy key moments on the first half while analogue, ambient and even prog rule the second. It's rare to call for an often indulgent double album to be expanded, but what Zomby gives with love, he takes away all too quickly.