Albums, Review | Zedd – Clarity (Album Review)

Posted by Middy on October 2, 2012

German Anton Zaslavski, better known to the music world as Zedd has started off this October flush with album releases with his debut 10 track album “Clarity”. Zedd has been hailed as one the big innovators of complextro and creating his own unique niche within the EDM scene. With this album we see him depart from that a bit and move to what we had seen in the infallible June release “Spectrum” with Matthew Koma. The album features two tracks that we are already familiar with, “Spectrum” and “Shave It”, which we will see its grinding synth line in other tracks on the album including, fittingly “Stache”, “Epos” and vaguely in the opening track “Hourglass”. Artist albums recently have become a place to showcase new and old singles with additional tracks that have a tendency to not be as good as the singles. Zedd breaks that trend and keeps keeps much of his best work for the grand finale with 80% of the album being totally new and only “Shave It” being “old”.

The album is ripe with high profile vocalists from One Reupblic’s Ryan Tedder, known in the Dance Music community for his work on “Calling (Lose My Mind)”, Ellie Goulding (no doubt Skrillex hooked that up), Heather Bright who has worked with Laidback Luke and Savoy. The high proportion of vocalists is a marked and welcome change in Zedd’s sound, as it gives some of the more melodic tracks on the album more texture and a more balanced sound. “Lost At Sea” with Ryan Tedder combines Daft Punk influences with an infectious, uplifting melody and a euphoric topline, carried by Ryan Tedder and aided by a rising piano motif. The next track “Clarity” featuring the Foxes on vocals and Porter Robinson & Matthew Koma aiding in the writing, fits perfectly as the title track, taking the gorgeous melody and layering it over a subtle grinding synth line gives us the hint of we have always known from Zedd. Look for these two to become hits.

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