Zero 7: When It Falls : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Short on originality but long on lusciousness, the British duo of Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker, otherwise known as Zero 7, are Air without irony. When It Falls is absolutely busting with floaty Fender Rhodes keyboard riffs, plucked acoustic guitars, billowing cornets and sexy vocalists. It's all purpose-built for a lights-low, aftershow party for two. "Somersault" burbles with Velveeta bass and simmers with a feline soul vocal by Sia Furler, and "Passing By" has a seven-layer rhythm underneath the vintage-keyboard vamping and Barbarella sound effects. The deliciously slow "In Time" features an effortlessly gorgeous vocal by Sophie Barker, and its beats and pieces tumble along with a rustic, quasi-western feel, as if Zero 7 have bizarrely reinvented Harvest-era Neil Young as a zipperless, untortured electronic producer. It's very sexy, though not exactly romantic. When It Falls is akin to a fabulous one-night stand: It feels great, it's very easy, and it requires absolutely no love or commitment at all.

PAT BLASHILL
(RS 944, March 18, 2004)