AOTY #21: Glass Animals - Zaba

Glass Animals breezed into the alternative scene with their debut album, ZABA. It combines chill electronics with tribal African sounds and a calming groove. It's like psychedelic rock updated for this decade. ZABA is a forward-thinking bedroom record for all of your...private needs. They're a needlessly ignored band

Surface-wise, Glass Animals sounds sexy because it's carnal, but like fairy-tale fey, ZABA is a dangerous world full of monsters conspiring against the hero. Lead singer, Dave Bayley, sometimes emulates a Kaa-like menace in songs like "Walla Walla". In terms of love, Dave's either messing up, or he's being swallowed alive

To solidify this atmosphere, Glass Animals creates production native to other continents without coming off as culturally insensitive. The mastering, meanwhile, comes out a British studio. With the transitionary outros and the mini-interludes, it's a wonder how this record lasts only 45 minutes

Radio single "Gooey" got people wondering what "right my little Pooh Bear" and "peanut butter vibes" mean. Well, both images build the song's theme about youthful, naive love. See how gross, yet evocative it can be:

Alright come close
Let me show you everything I know
A jungle slang
Spinning round my head and I stare
While my naked fool
Fresh out of an icky gooey womb
A woozy youth
Dopes up on her silky smooth perfumeThough Glass Animals can overdo it at times, ZABA pulls off its jungle island setting; plus, the line "I'm running round your head with a bolo knife" from "Flip" is pretty cool

The relationship between a man and a wrongful woman is depicted with mixed success in music. Glass Animals avoided stumbling with a fantastical twist, as "Pools" creates its own mythology, where Dave is cast as a sirenized mortal:

We sip the wind through lips of lust
And out it comes, warm wisps of love
I smile because I want to
I smile because you want to

Put the flowers in your hair
Wrap your tendrils round my chest
I smile because I want to
I am your boyAnother highlight, "Hazey", approaches the similar subject from a (more) realistic manner. You can feel Dave's pleas as he sings "don't you drain those big, blue eyes" - saying each word between breaths, and then quickly rattling off the next line. He captures the mind of a domestic victim, bridged by deceptively serene guitars. It even ends with a sound resembling quicksand

If you haven't heard anything from ZABA yet, pull Glass Animals up on Genius now - it's a safari into a hellish paradise

- Chihuahua0

Come back tomorrow for album #20 and follow along with the list here!