Zeropolis – 1000 Walls (Digital)

Like many, the Covid-19 pandemic led to a pause in the musical adventures of London-based Zeropolis. On their 1000 Walls album, it also helped the duo refine their sound and musical vision into something sharp, acerbic, and timely as the UK struggles from the self-inflected damage caused by Brexit, endless culture wars, and mismanagement of the pandemic.

Zeropolis is comprised of Coco and Gigi, two French exiles who met in London through the city’s vibrant DIY punk scene, with the band officially forming in 2018.

The music on 1000 Walls is inspired by their yearning to produce an occasionally sombre but always danceable strain of electronic post-punk, allying that with lyrical themes ranging from technological fatigue and depression to social inequalities and the pressures of work life and the nuclear family.

The duo spent their early days rehearsing in a garden shed they hand-built in a Bromley-by-Bow warehouse that was up for demolition, slowly crafting what would become their first EP. The self-titled effort ended up being released in early 2020 by FDH Records in the US and Blank Editions in the UK, right before the first nationwide lockdown forced them to put a pin in all their touring plans.

The 12 songs on 1000 Walls were recorded in November 2022 with the help of Jonah Falco – known for their work with Fucked Up and Career Suicide – on sound engineering duties.

Each song shares a vitality and sense of righteous rage at the deliberate enshittification of not just the UK, but western society in general. The album is no nihilistic howl into the void, though. Think of it as a call to arms, highlighting the need to change society for the better before empty politics and unregulated technology changes it for the worse.

Gigi and Coco distil a host of alternative music influences into a heady brew on 1000 Walls. The brutal metronomic beats of DAF and Nitzer Ebb, the taut tones of Suicide and Bauhaus, and the funereal anthemic qualities of Killing Joke can all be heard, though at times filtered through a Drab Majesty style hazy musical gauze. The duo strives to be accessible, however: they want their message to be heard, loud and clear.

It’s the blending of the personal and the political in the acutely observational nature of the lyrics that helps set 1000 Walls apart. Its overall post-punk feel is delivered with a passion often absent from the genre, highlighting the intensely human tales that unfold in each track, expressed in an uncompromising manner that often highlights the beauty and energy that can found be within the wreckage of modern life.

While the album has been shaped by living in London during turbulent times, the themes of the album are universal: work, life, loss, and finding yourself while living in a media-driven reality that is increasingly at odds with the lives we lead.