Album Review: Black Pompadour by The Zincs

Windy city auteur Jim Elkington's Zincs project sounds more like a full-time occupation on the group's artfully urban and understated third outing, Black Pompadour. Any and all inflections of the British folk-rock that Elkington brought with him to Chicago from the U.K. have vanished. A heady mix of mid-period the the and Element of Light-era Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians, Pompadour's strengths are often subtle enough to miss the first time around.

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If you read the lyrics in the liner notes to the Zincs’ Black Pompadour without listening to the music, you would get exactly the wrong impression of what the album sounds like. On the other hand, listen to the music without paying attention to the lyrics, and you would never be able to guess what lead singer Jim Elkington is going on about. Black Pompadour has a basic creative tension, and that comes from the disparity between its polished and tasteful music and its lyrics, which are laden with the kind of dark imagery that, once upon a time, would have suited your average hardcore band.

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