Zoppo is an Amsterdam guitar quartet that makes lo-fi alternative pop rock in the tradition of bands like Sebadoh and Smog. Les Aumonts - written in the French hamlet of the same name - is her first album on the Transformed Dreams label, which is known for its stable of highly promising guitar bands (Seesaw, Zea, Birdskin, Seedling). Someone like John Peel also saw Zoppo's talent when he discovered
… the band in 2000 at the Noorderslag festival and played its music several times in his Radio 1 program on the BBC. After the poppy and more experimental debut Belgian Style Pop, Zoppo finally takes the road of melancholy: with echoes from the eighties and misty soundscapes, evoked by a false and tinny guitar sound or a gritty guitar wall, a rusted sounding violin and brittle, sleepy polyphonic vocal lines. The album contains a lot of dynamics: loud is alternated with soft, rough with calm and screaming vocals with beautiful melody lines. (BP)more
