ZOMBI

Over the last year Steve Moore's name has cropped up a couple of times here at the EYE, as his killer retro synth scores are a standout feature of both Adam Wingard's The Guest and recent Belgian slasher Cub. The man who wrote his first scores for low budget gorefests The Redsin Tower and Gutterballs is now making a real name for himself as an electronic composer of the highest order. I'm dying to hear what he has in store for Joe Begos' upcoming Scanners homage, The Mind's Eye, as Moore is a perfect fit for the material). A choice cut from The Guest...

...and here's a beauty from Cub. The intro part of this track is reminiscent of Ennio Morricone's score for The Thing, after which it morphs into the more typical Carpenter sound that's a mainstay of Moore's work:

As everyone reading this is doubtless already aware, Moore is also the keyboard and bass half of ZOMBI, his longtime band with drummer Anthony Paterra. Over the years the duo (who hail from the same town where Romero shot Night, Dawn and Day) have surpassed their reputation as mere Goblin and Carpenter acolytes, and are now the reigning kings of the horror/sci-fi related prog/space rock and synthwave scene. As with bands like Goblin and Trans Am, the inclusion of live drumming and bass kicks things into overdrive, making their music noticeably more visceral and heavy than many of their synthwave brethren.

My favourite ZOMBI jam to date is the title track from 2009's Spirit Animal LP. Their music is very cinematic (obviously), but this 14 minute epic is so evocative that I can't listen to it without daydreaming about the images that might accompany it on screen. Split into three parts, "Spirit Animal" seems to be telling a story. As the track's anthemic opening segues into a beautiful giallo-esque melody, and finally into a transcendent crescendo, it's easy to imagine it as a powerful accompaniment to an extended sequence filmed as a dialogue-free visual narrative. Have a listen for yourself, you'll see what I mean:

After a four year hiatus, following 2011's pulse pounding Escape Velocity, ZOMBI are back next month with a new nine track LP called Shape Shift. If these new tracks - "Pillars of the Dawn" (which could be a lost track from Goblin's DOTD score) and "Mission Creep" (fuck Moore knows his way around a bass) - are any indication, we could be in for their best stuff yet.