When you hear the term “pandemic” album, you might automatically flash on a sad, lonely kind of experience, something solitary and acoustic and, after all’s said and done, better than nothing, but maybe not by much. You don’t think about furious, full-band onslaughts like Zerodent’s Human Races, but hey, punk bands went through the ringer, too. These Perth-based pogo-bangers were just off a European tour when the world shut down. For months they were unable to tour, play out or even get together to jam.
Zerodent has been a Dusted favorite since mid-2017, when a chance purchase on Bandcamp prompted me to write, “The temptation is to compare them to blunt and basic outfits like Eddy Current Suppression Ring, [but] the punch and hook of these three cuts links them back to angry, funny, tuneful British punk like the Buzzcocks and Half Man Half Biscuit.” That all still applies, but when the lockdown forced the band’s four members to work separately on songs, they diverged from the template in interesting ways.
Thus while Human Races again offers Class of 78-style bombers like “Panic Bolt”— all mobile, buoyant bass play, a Clash-like clangor of guitars, and blustery chants that edge off into anthemry—it also dips into more pensive moods. “Perfect Thriller,” for instance, has a morose, contemplative aura. The vocals are plainly sung, not ranted, and the guitars execute elegant, elegiac gestures, rather than scrubbed and angsty strums. A caffeinated “Boredom Antidote,” rails and rages like an old punk in the mosh pit, but it’s followed by a more lyrical and weathered “Human Races,” which sighs more than it hollers over the sorry state of things. The closing “Feeling Alright Again” celebrates getting to the other side of a difficult period with a triumphant chorus but kind of a wistful, introspective verse. Zerodent has come through the last few years in fine form, but like many of us, they’re not the same as they were before.
