Hamburger
Teenage terrified
Specialist subject
So a few people form a friendship and meet in a vegan cafe. They decide to form a band and one of their first jobs is to decide a name for it. Names are strange beasts. Bands out so much effort into them and yet people don’t really care. Or do they? If Heavenly were called Hell would we find it more difficult to describe their dreamy pop sounds. If the clash were called the blankets would we have difficulty in describing the cutting edge to their music.
So maybe a name is important. The friends in the vegan cafe went for the name hamburger so we can get a feast of pop tunes. They are dreamy though. 6 songs on this 12” spaced three a side. All Hail Zebulon features the title in its words. “Dancing in your eyes, teenage terrified”. Maybe it’s a love song for a time when we were coming of age, discovering a world and trying to create new friendships. “Come on, it’s happiness we want after all.” That sure is an ominous line these days and takes completely different meaning during pandemic times.
Alien Song starts with a radio frequency but glides along again with talk of school before finishing just as prompt as it starts. Seafood may not have been on the menu in the vegan cafe where hamburger started but as a lyric “I will treat you like seafood…But I don’t really need you” is probably not a clarion call for us all to change our diet as the songs picks up some pace but still has that dream like feel the rest of side A has offered.
The pace picks up with side B as Cut It Out sees the main vocal duties being taken over. The pop is more straightforward in a C86 vein. Tunes galore here. Super sad continues the tunes and could nearly be an anthem for the day. People are always allowed express their feelings but when we hear “I’m fucking miserable…..But right now I can’t do anything” it takes on a different meaning. This is nearly a majority opinion as we struggle with sitting in our homes listening to records like this waiting for that sun to shine once more.
The collection is suitably finished with the sweet sounds of Agatha. Again a tune is just getting ready to break through. Beautiful sounds preparing for the freedom that awaits
niallhope
