zzzahara

If artistic creation is the truest path to spiritual catharsis then LA-based, Mexican-Filipino songwriter zzzahara (formerly of The Simps) is well on course and intent on staying on it. Emerging from the emotional wasteland of a poisoned relationship, on 1990s inflected third album ‘Spiral your way out’ zzzahara looks back, takes stock, selects the necessary ammunition and then aims true at their chosen target. An ex marks the once blind spot.

Opening with the double-negative as outright positive statement of ‘It didn’t mean nothing’ the stall is out, the scene is set, the wheels are in (e)motion, the road best travelled is the one on the way out of somewhere going nowhere. A defiant farewell kiss-off to a toxic other and set to seemingly contradictory upbeat jangly-guitars, zzzahara repeatedly rasps ‘You were a waste of my time’ with the confidence of a freed spirit. Melancholic musings set to emancipatory music have long been strange – yet closely entwined - bedfellows.

‘In your head’ continues the diatribal warfare as the jibe of ‘being someone you’re not’ is levelled at the imposter who imposed upon zzzahara’s well-being and facilitated an unexpected undoing. The last laugh is always the loudest. And longest.

Aided and abetted by creative accomplices including Sarah Tudzin (boygenius) and Jorge Elbrecht (Japanese Breakfast, Sky Ferreira) on production duties and Halsey tour drummer Franco Reid and former Ducktails guitarist Alex Craig on instrumentation, ‘Spiral your way out’ is a tale head-spinning, heart-winning collection of lo-fi slacker redemption songs laced with clear-eyed rue and regret (‘Bruised’; ‘Pressure makes a diamond’) and pristine power-pop in and outrespection (‘Head in a wheel’).

The wonderfully titled ‘If I had to go I would leave the door half closed’ addresses hope in vain, a coded-ode to a symbolic gap that is equally open and shut: who’s going to push and who’s going to pull to end the doubt?
Revenge is a dish best served cold it is said, however, there’s a residual warmth within these songs, a tepid bitterness that knows the greatest retort is that following a descent you’ve demonstrated you’ve taken the vital steps to landing back on your feet.

What better way than producing a breakup album with a heart at peace with war.