Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 22/05/06
Label: Atlantic

Having chilled themselves to the point of coma with their first two albums, Zero 7 duo Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker have suddenly woken up. In an unexpected fit of life, their third longplayer is a veritable surge of energy, positivity and sunshine. And it's come just in time to save both them and us. Spiking their dependable wooziness with light and vitality has undoubtedly saved the onetime masters of the gravity-free lullaby from turning into tedious old duffers, and everyone else from a world without electronica loveliness.

"The Garden" is, without qualification, a triumph. An intriguing curiosity; clearly born of the same ambient DNA which made their debut, "Simple Things", so seductive, yet with an endearing, oddball personality all of its own. Where their last album, 2004's "When It Falls", was "Simple Things" on a bigger budget, with fewer ideas, this is Zero 7 rediscovering the pile of analogue synths, DIY attitude and escapist's imagination which inspired their emergence in the first place.

So, to their Fender Rhodes's reliable widescreen shimmer they've added electro bleeps, synth-pop struts, rolling MOR and, more often than not, a good 20 bpm. All of which makes the perfect backdrop to their new found, almost blindingly sunny disposition. "Throw It All Away" has regular cohort, the sultry slurrer Sia, breezily cruising to a sunshine melody that's Steely Dan at their hot August afternoon best, while "The Pageant Of The Bizarre" has her indulging in a psychedelic waltz before turning strumpet for the dance-floor teasing stomp of "You're My Flame".

Similarly, new recruit, Swedish singer-songwriter José González, mixes the retro influences, his folky-musing adding a hippy spirituality to "Futures" and "Today", yet defiant strength to the soft, Fleetwood Mac rock of his own "Crosses". Coupled with a handful of surprisingly alluring vocals from Henry Binns himself - modelled in style of 10CC - it's evident that Zero 7 are still stranded on a desert island in the middle of the '70s, but now they're having a proper look around and finding out that there's more to do than just lazing about.

They're back to playing with ideas rather than writing soft-focus lounging to order. And while the results of this broadening of horizons unquestionably make for a ramshackle bric-a-brac, it's made whole by the glowing positivity which banishes all melancholy come the chorus. A quirky lo-fi wonder or the best album the '70s never had, "The Garden" feels like a lost gem, discovered in a box in the attic; a forgotten masterpiece full of tantalising sounds, odd voices and tingling ideas. A leftfield contender, with essential listening stamped all over it.

    by Dan Gennoe