NYC experimental, progressive sludge and psychedelic rock group Netherlands, is led by former Yoko Ono collaborator Timo Ellis. Ellis has been performing under this moniker since 2012 and has remained remarkably consistent throughout the project's run, sounding a little like Spacehog meeting Wayne Coyne for a hot, three-way, hotel-rendezvous with Torche. Zombie Techno is thematically a critique of consumer culture and humanity's abuse of the environment that doesn't hold out much hope that we'll correct course before there is nothing left on earth to eat but raw plastic. This theme is driven home on the sardonic and biting, bassy and brash, feedback fricasseed song "We're All Gonna Die One Day." Elsewhere, the title-track and "Casual Monster" kind of bleed together, but still retain distinctive characters, with the former leaning into space-aged, Parliament-esque, punk-funk and the latter opting to be a pensive, blown-out and theatrical version of Jane's Addiction suffocating in a grain silo. "Shirestarter" is minimalistic, allowing the band's weird melodic preoccupations to take center stage, and "U.F.O. D.U.I." could be mistaken for a late-career Butthole Surfer single. Another solid album from a band who aren't pushing the envelope as much as steering it twine with a laser cutter.
