If Zeros was judged on the merit of its lead single ‘Beautiful Faces’ alone, Declan McKenna’s second album should have had 5-star reviews pencilled-in since January. With the release of the full record, that pencil has to be written over with full-on permanent marker.
The social media-critical track gave us a glint of the sardonic exclamations, anthemic hooks and euphoria that have come to characterise McKenna’s stellar new album. McKenna’s 2017 debut What Do You Think About The Car felt like an indie kid’s perfect summer’s day, but Zeros is a sweaty Black Mirror-esque nightclub full of joyful chaos and catastrophe from the first listen. The effervescent opening ‘You Better Believe!!!’ even has the exclamation marks to prove it.
Declan McKenna hasn’t held back on any part of Zeros – it was made for filling out venues, but for now, playing it at full volume on noise-cancelling headphones will have to do. It’s a rollercoaster, that pleasantly surprises and throws curveballs that simply work. The overall sound is hard to pin down, with each song being full of individual personality and merit, but together they are a cohesive collection. From the dance worthy ‘The Key to Life on Earth’ to the slide guitar in ‘Emily’ and the sentimental closing song ‘Eventually, Darling’, the melodies in Zeros are eclectic and memorable across the board. And while the album works brilliantly as a synth-heavy and perfectly produced collection of songs, the Zeros (Stripped) EP shows that their skeletons are robust enough to stand alone.
McKenna’s lyrics have always been exceptional, and his sophomore album sees him elevate them to new heights. The clever lyrics and nuanced references are there – the album contains meditations on climate change and capitalism to name just a couple of themes – but they’re less overt than his 2019 anti-war anthem ‘British Bombs’, or the FIFA protest song ‘Brazil’ that originally catapulted him to fame back in 2015. Instead, Zeros feels both hugely dystopian and extremely current – it feels like a contradiction until you remember the threats we’re experiencing as the human race. In ‘Rapture’, he brilliantly forces ‘nature’ and ‘Thatcher’ to rhyme (you have to hear it to believe it), and laments the monotony of work-culture in ‘The Key to Life on Earth’, singing “Iron your suit and tie / Forever ’til you die’. Telling Mother Nature to “take the day off” in climate-focused ‘Sagittarius A*’ is another particular lyrical highlight. Declan McKenna is one of those artists who can seamlessly transition from singing about asteroids and astronauts to quavers and Nike trainers.
Declan McKenna has successfully navigated a reinvented image and sound while remaining recognisable as the glitter-clad, down-to-earth dude we first saw years ago. I’ll save the comparisons to Bowie that many have drawn – one listen to ‘Be an Astronaut’ should explain those for you. And for all his influences, from the Starman himself to St. Vincent, McKenna has cemented himself as a unique voice in mainstream British pop. He can tear down the establishment while recording lyric videos in front of green screens adorned with slightly creepy animations of himself, and sound damn good while doing it too.
If 2020 is unsalvageable, at least we’re going down listening to a hell of a good album.
Words by Kat Smith
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