The Zolas are Coming! by Darcy Nybo

Author Profile: Darcy Nybo

Darcy Nybo is an award winning author, freelance journalist, online editor, book editor, publisher, word nerd, music lover and all around nut bar.

Canada Online News | Gonzo Online! - Music

Written by Darcy Nybo

The Zolas are coming!

Their first single, Knot In My Heart is an internet sensation, and hit #1 on The Hype Machine.

“The Zolas are channeling a soupçon of Emile Zola with their avant-pop and outsider stories set to a brooding soundtrack of sunny guitar blasts. … their music captures the zeitgeist of youth, and resulting follies, creating the perfect bouncy and nostalgic mid-90's sounding jams.” – Beat Music Magazine.

After debuting with Tic Toc Tic in 2009, The Zolas scaled the precipice of cult status across Canada, thanks to a loyal fanbase carried over from Zach Gray (vocals, guitar) and Tom Dobrzanski’s (piano) earlier years as Lotus Child. With Ancient Mars, their second album, The Zolas are set to continue their legacy of postmodern pop. Armed with poetic lyrics, Ancient Mars trades in the cabaret glitz of Tic Toc Tic for reverbed pianos and hard, minimalist beats.

In Strange Girl a sunny guitar riff blasts into the perfect mid-‘90s summer jam, while title track Ancient Mars is bouncy and nostalgic, with heaping spoonfuls of Montreal and Brooklyn avant-pop. If John Lennon and Kanye West met later tonight at a hotel bar, Escape Artist is the song they would write.

The Zolas’ tumultuous songwriting captures the angst of being in your 20s, on the cusp of youth and real adulthood. In each song Gray builds a skeleton of a setting – from outer space to a college library to a Victorian jail cell – and tells stories fleshed out with the listener’s own history.

The Zolas did a live recording of lead track Ancient Mars. Says Zachary Gray on the concept, “We were watching old DVD’s in our friend’s basement last month and happened to choose The Blue Lagoon, a controversial movie from my childhood (none of us were allowed to watch it) where two kids get shipwrecked on an island and fall in love.  We were mock-analyzing it as if it was an art film afterward. Someone decided that it represents 'a beautiful place that you know you can't go back to once you leave' and then someone else said 'hey that fits with our song' so we took a projector up into the attic and shot this.”

You can purchase their album or single songs on iTunes - click here

The Zolas are currently touring and on their way to a city near you.

Upcoming Tour Dates:

Oct 24 – Winnipeg – Park Theatre

Oct 26 – Saskatoon – Amigo’s

Oct 29 – Lethbridge – The Slice

Oct 30 – Calgary – Palomino

Nov 1 – Edmonton – Wunderbar

Nov 2 – Kelowna – The Habitat

Nov 16 – Vancouver – Rio

Nov 23 – Victoria – Felicita’s

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