A haunting early 70s McCartney/Emitt Rhodes inspired album, Higgins manage to pull off the classic era Wings vibe(pretty much on most of the songs here), some Badfinger and Beatles "White Album" while we are at it but "Zs" is not a retro fest for while the bands` inspiration are convention by pop standards, they spend a lot of time here messing with established formula a bit - not unlike recent popsters like Bryan Scary and Starling Electric. It is not an `in-your-face` affair as it has a laid-back, sleeping in the hammock on a summer afternoon feel but you can never quite fully doze off because everything that is going on is so damn interesting! Listen to song #1 below - Close your eyes and you might hear some Ray Davies, some Beach Boys, some of Zeppelin`s rhythm section, some Mike Bloomfield guitar, some McCartney, some Zombies; and all kinds of good good stuff here. "Just for the sake of argument I`m assuming that you`re the type of listener who is wild about record albums, who really digs into them and gets dirty with them; and if that`s you, I can`t recommend Zs to you enthusiastically enough. There`s enough going on here to merit scores of repeat listens, and you don`t have to invest in a thousand-dollar pair of headphones to get hypnotized. Zs plays like it was recorded by unabashed musical aristocrats. No concessions whatever have been made to the marketplace - instead, they`re out there chasing rock excellence in its Platonic form. Ironically, it is because pop is such a glorious and wonderful thing that musical genius is so rarely appreciated: when a red guitar, three chords, and the truth is all that is required to scale the heights of greatness, Beatlesque innovation is hardly needed. It is nice that Higgins have lately found some modest recognition for their sustained excellence, but that`s almost beside the point: if pop music was truly the meritocracy that the most fatalistic contingent of the record-making public thinks it is, (leader) Kevin Fish would be king of the hill. GRADE: Solid, Unambiguous "A".
 Song #1 - mp3
Song #2 - mp3
Song #3 - mp3
Song #4 - mp3
Song #5 - mp3 | 
