{"id":2377,"date":"2014-10-14T12:20:49","date_gmt":"2014-10-14T16:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/?p=2377"},"modified":"2014-10-23T13:00:11","modified_gmt":"2014-10-23T17:00:11","slug":"zola-jesus-taiga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/zola-jesus-taiga\/","title":{"rendered":"Zola Jesus <br>Taiga"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/zola_jesus-taiga.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2378\" src=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/zola_jesus-taiga.jpg\" alt=\"zola_jesus-taiga\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/zola_jesus-taiga.jpg 250w, https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/zola_jesus-taiga-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a>It&#8217;s not hard to imagine Zola Jesus wanting to have some fun after four LPs and a handful of EPs filled with strange, often haunting music. That intended fun comes through on <i>Taiga<\/i> (Mute Records) on tracks like \u201cDangerous Days\u201d and \u201cHunger,\u201d both of which try to set the mood for some Saturday night mischief, but she\u2019s trying soooooo hard. \u201cDangerous Days\u201d starts with four on the floor and builds quickly to a big chorus worthy of any post-Disney pop princess. \u201cIt\u2019s a dark, dark place,\u201d she bellows, in full on belting range. Right before the first chorus, though, there are eight bars of a primal beat with Zola incanting \u201con the floor, on the ground, on the stairs, on the way\u201d in one of her huskier voices. On any other Zola Jesus album, this would be the part that gets the most time and attention. Here, she pushes it aside to get to the soaring center more quickly.<\/p>\n<p>She called \u201cHunger,\u201d in an interview, \u201cthe theme of the record.\u201d It certainly aims higher in terms of pop bombast. This time she goes straight for the sugar, jumping to the chorus without even a verse to support it first. The production here is, frankly, frustrating to listen to. A thin \u201chorn\u201d lead paired with a huge, heavy-handed bass drum. Like the lyric, it provides nothing of substance to hold onto. Similarly empty experiences are available from \u201cIt\u2019s Not Over\u201d and \u201cLawless.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Luckily, these ill-conceived tracks are a little less than half the running time. The title track, for example, would fit in pretty well on <i>Conatus<\/i>, with the exception of the breakbeat that fills up the track about two-thirds of the way through. \u201cGo (Blank Sea)\u201d is like a pop anthem gone rotten. It features a sliding vocal gesture that\u2019s either terribly grating or strangely uplifting (you\u2019ll have to decide for yourself). \u201cNail\u201d doesn\u2019t feel quite as organic as her best work, but it\u2019s as creepy (key lyric: \u201cpull the nail out with your teeth\u201d) as the Zola Jesus I\u2019ve come to know and love. All of which is a powerful demonstration of what a thin line she has been walking all this time. A single misstep in any direction and one of her brooding anthems ends up ponderous instead of wondrous, posturing instead of imposing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s not hard to imagine Zola Jesus wanting to have some fun after four LPs and a handful of EPs filled with strange, often haunting music. That intended fun<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[34,618,933],"class_list":["post-2377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-reviews","tag-album-review","tag-mute-records","tag-zola-jesus"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Zola Jesus Taiga - The Agit Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/zola-jesus-taiga\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Zola Jesus Taiga - The Agit Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It&#039;s not hard to imagine Zola Jesus wanting to have some fun after four LPs and a handful of EPs filled with strange, often haunting music. 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