Album Review #1: Zeros by Declan McKenna
The first album review of my 2021 album listening experiment covers one of the UK’s most intriguing singer/songwriters around, Declan McKenna. This is his second studio album, Zeros, which released on September 4th, 2020. I managed to forget to listen within the first three months of its release, not without stern encouragement from some friends (you know who you are). But alas, I have finally listened to it and I, as expected, appreciate this album very much.
The opener, “You Better Believe”, is a piano-led and bouncy track to kick off the album in a typically upbeat, ready-for-indie-festival manner. It’s relatively simplistic but a reliable banger of a beginning, nonetheless. There are certainly big highlights that I will get on to right now.
One of the standouts for me is “Be An Astronaut”. An epic with a lavish soundscape and near-flawless production. The chorus is electric and catchy, “You were born to be an astronaut/And you’ll do that or die trying”. It is a four-and-a-half-minute epic that I encourage you listen to.
Undeniably though, the magnum opus of the album must be “Daniel, You’re Still A Child”. It is a fantastic poppy glam rock track. Literally amazing! This is the song where I find Mr. McKenna is most charismatic on this track, vocal inflections. A song full of the sentiment of displeasure and displacement…
