Probably the most interesting thing about Zonian Girls…And The Echoes That Surround Us All is not the music itself, but how it came to be. Singer and guitarist Brandon Hanick did what many of us wish we could do: He spent three years in a foreign country, in his case Spain, and came back just about broke, with nothing but some money, stories, fluency in Spanish, and the 20 songs that would become Zonian Girls. The 70-minute double-album is chock full of tales about photographers, chain smokers, and just about anything else a person can experience over the course of three years.
As the title shamelessly suggests, Zonian Girls…And The Echoes That Surround Us All takes inspiration from all around. There is no one word that can describe the genre of the album, because just about every song is different; the country rock of “The Sun Will Never Rise” and the distorted blues of “Chain Smokin’ Woman” sound right at home with the spacey alt-pop of tracks like “Your Work Is Magic.” Even “Old Masks,” a spacey story about a bus trip that splits the double LP, is perfectly natural in the mix.
It’s rare to come across an album that really everyone should listen to, but Zonian Girls fits that bill. Music that doesn’t offer a payout for the listener equal to the amount of work put into its production gets released so often, but King Of Prussia present a completely different case. The journey they bring you on is almost as wonderful as getting lost in Spain for a few years. Whether you prefer romance, tear jerking, or just incredible overdubbing, these guys have what you need.
In A Word: Indispensable
