The Zinvandels – Life – single review
The Zinvandels are a Swansea based band who appear to have done pretty well for themselves recently, previous singles have had pretty good support from some prominent radio DJ’s and they were featured as a BBC introducing artist of the week, I’ve caught them live once or twice and, actually really enjoyed them live as well, they seem to have spent most of 2019 in the studio recording new material and new single “Life” recently dropped in to my inbox, so it would be rude not to take a listen really.
The Zinvandels simply describe themselves as 60’s inspired welsh rock ‘n’ roll and that is a very accurate description – my first thought was they sounded like a lot of 90’s bands, but of course all the 90’s bands they sound like were very inspired by bands from the 60’s, so I guess its a case of same book different page.
This song “ Life” eases us in with a nice simple guitar and vocal part for the first few lines, which is paired with a good catchy vocal melody that made me think of something in between an Oasis song and a stereophonics intro, or if you wanna use those more 60’s references it reminds me of The Faces or the Kinks. Its simple catchy and effective and builds nicely as the bass subtly sneaks in underneath and the second guitar adds some nice texture to the song before it kicks in and takes a on a slightly more bluesy tone. Its a nice contrast to the previous part and definitely lifts the song to another level, with dual vocals, one sounding a bit more strained and pushed with another smoother one behind it, this I approve of very much, it fills the chorus out well and gives it a real sing a long feel which I’m always a fan of. The drums sound massive when they kick in with some nice little fills keeping it interesting without taking away from anything else, simple but big and effective. For most of the song once the whole band has joined in its a bluesy sounding stomp of a song, with the rhythm section locking in on that feel while the guitars have a bit more freedom around it. The song opens up nicely as the song progresses and builds towards a big ending crescendo full of various sing a long vocal parts, it sounds like they had some fun recording the end of this one, which makes it sound like the kind of thing that’ll go down a treat live, I guess the only problem for the crowd will be which catchy vocal hook to sing along with.
This is a great tune if your in to 60’s inspired rock there’s elements of The kinks, The faces, even some bits of early Rolling stones or The who, or of course if your frame of reference is more 90’s, think of a laid back stereophonics or oasis song, after all they’d probably list most of those 60’s bands as influences.