CD Review: Luke Kuzava: Zombies Can't Dance
by Brady Tighe
Zombies are one of the hottest
topics around at the moment. Their
slow, creeping death walk has infiltrated
almost every artistic medium,
from books to films. Music, however,
remains untouched with the
stench of the living dead. Until now.
Luke Kuzava’s Zombies Can’t Dance
is like a modern-day wet dream of
the kind of record everyone wished
existed, but was only talked about
in whispers before now. It’s an indie
electronic concept album about a
zombie invasion, running in a sequence
that starts at the last party
ever, then chronicles the rise of the
zombies and the humans’ attempts
to stop them, and then end’s with
the apocalypse.
The album manages to pull this
whole arc off while being not only
fun to listen to, but thoughtful as
well. It’s an album that poses amusing
ideas about the idea of a zombie
invasion. Is the girl that’s going
to hook up with you at the world’s
last party only doing so because everyone
will be dead tomorrow? If
you’re a zombie-killing robot, and
you realize all humans are potential
zombies, what do you do?
All these questions get answered
with songs that run the taste metre
from laid-back robot Auto-Tone
groove, to late-at-night insomniac
crooning, to upbeat indie standards
run by keyboards snapping off
catchy hooks and riffs. It’s a record
you can tell was made in the computer
age, but it still has a human
touch to every nuance of it—a record
made with care and love.
Oh, it’s also about killing fucking
zombies. As much as you dress
up songs like “Aim For The Head”
and “Survivor’s Guilt” with mellow
noises and solid lyrics about
loss and longing, the badass-ness
of battling hordes of the damned is
apparent. It’s like if Zombieland had
been a Wes Anderson film, without
Bill Murray.
This album is one great song
after another and one great idea all
around. In today’s pop culture atmosphere
it’s not only current and
fitting, but worthy of being part of
the zombie lexicon as well. If you’re
a fan of zombies and music (who
isn’t?) then I recommend you immediately
head to www.zombiescantdance.com where you can
download the entire album, along
with the album art. Every song also
comes with a picture drawn to fit
the song. It’s a fully realized and
brilliant work of art.
And besides, if a zombie invasion
actually goes down, and let’s
hope it does, then you have the perfect
soundtrack. And like the album
says about the last party ever, you
can drink like you’ll never have a
hangover again. Because you’ll be
zombified. What a world.