When Ely Buendia sings “The world is a place / behind this firewall” on Zilch’s scorching opener “Firewall,” it is both an invitation and a taunt: a wink-nudge suggestion that there is a plane beyond the rabbit-hole—that the practice of imagining is a reward in itself, perhaps the best reward of all—but also a show of sneer-filled discontent. In this day and age, when unthinkable things start coming to life, when fiction starts ringing like the truth, it is odd of anyone to not want to rearrange the furniture in their minds even for a bit. And Zilch, Pupil’s fourth full-length and their first with MCA Music, Inc., is charitable in imaginings both musical and lyrical.
Finished during a collaborative sabbatical of sorts—Buendia doing shows with punk-rockabilly supergroup The Oktaves, as well as booking the occasional solo revue home and elsewhere; drummer Wendell Garcia doing session work with a host of acts, even reuniting for a few gigs with Barbie’s Cradle; and, perhaps most publicly, bassist Dok Sergio and new guitarist Jerome Velasco doing a string of successful shows with the momentarily-reformed Teeth—the new record brings with it a fresh perspective on Pupil music-making.
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