When It Falls

The Ultimate Chill-Out Group
by: tim wardyn

Three years ago the British duo of Sam Hardaker and Henry Binns quietly released one of the best albums of the decade, Simple Things, which included the gorgeous track “Destiny.” These two producers took their erotically relaxing sound, rounded up singers Sia Furler, Sophie Barker and Mozez (all featured throughout Simple Things) as well as vocalist Tina Dico and made their follow-up When It Falls, an album that takes the slower aspects of Simple Things and runs with them.

The album starts off with Mozez taking the lead on the lackluster (and frankly boring) “Warm Sound.” Despite the slow start the album moves to the first single, and easily the best song on the album, entitled “Home,” this time featuring Tina Dico. Her powerfully understated vocals perfectly compliment the porn background beats. This is definitely a track that could set the mood (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

“Somersault” begins the slow descent into oblivion for Zero 7. After this track I started to forget that I was actually listening to the album. The songs are okay, but they make for much better background music than music that should have some attention paid to it. The upside is that this is a great album to have in the background for almost anything: cooking, thinking, shaving, boinking, there’s a track for everything here.

“Somersault” will soon be remixed by Danger Mouse. If that name sounds familiar, it should. He’s been getting a lot of publicity for combining Jay-Z’s The Black Album and The Beatles White Album and calling it The Grey Album. Hopefully, he can liven up this track just a little bit.

Overall Zero 7 have hit a slight sophomore slump. On Simple Things they interspersed the slower tracks with some funkier and more upbeat rhythms. When It Falls takes Zero 7 into the slow and laid-back side of Simple Things and by the third track the sound gets very tiresome.

Although nothing like their first album, When It Falls is still a decent record that can be used as background music for anything from reading a book to bedroom exercises. 30-Mar-2004 9:20 AM