Artist » Zoppo

Over the last nine years Zoppo (from Amsterdam, Holland) has grown from a home-tape duo into a four boys and one girl band. After several vinyl releases, their first full-length cd "Belgian Style Pop" meant their break-through to more media attention and a broader audience. Their third full-length "Les Aumonts" was released to great reviews and by press and bands in the same genre considered to be the best example of Dutch "postrock". Zoppo's fourth album "Don't Trust Scarred Survivors", released early 2006, shows them in a more 3-4 minute "pop-fashion", without losing the edgy guitar-sounds and the so typical melancholic feel. The album again got applauded as an exceptional and outstanding record (see reviews section). Zoppo's very own universe exists of intensity, intimacy and loveliness as well as rawness, loudness and noise, always based on inventive melodies.

Reviews in the Daily paper NRC.Next (15/03/06): 4/5 stars "The course is wayward but still accessible" "Although the term indie (for: independent) tends to loose its meaning after the mega-success of indie-bands like Franz Ferdinand and Artic Monkeys, there are still bands around that want to take an independent stand. Guitarband Zoppo from Amsterdam follows its own course with music that is, within all its waywardness, surprisingly accessible. Their fourth album "Don't Trust Scarred Survivors" follows along the lines of edgy guitarmusic of Joy Division, Sonic Youth, Pavement and Dutch examples as Mecano and The Ex. Exceptional about Zoppo is that, despite the lo-fi-ish megaphone vocals and piercing guitars, they reach a level of emotional expressiveness that since the heydays of Radiohead as a guitarrockband hasn't been heard this strong. Here you won't find casual three-chord songs on fantreeguitars, but carefully fitting parts of two string-fetishists (Cees van Appeldoorn and Arjan Tuin), who take there whole collection of guitars to gigs and to the Next To Jaap Studio of their supergrooving bassplayer Corno Zwetsloot, because for every song they need a different tuning and soundcolours. Because of that 'Don't Trust....." has a great variety in passionate songs full of compelling rhythms and an atmosphere pregnant of disaster."