SRS TRAX: Zomby ft. Panda Bear - Things Fall Apart

Is this why Zomby bailed on AnCo at ATP?




(3.75)

JESSE: The beginning of this track is great. A gunshot, the warning siren, nice drum machine, a solid ascending synth groove. Then Panda Bear comes in. What happened? Nothing changes for the rest of the track. Just a lot of reverb on Panda's vocals, which repeat, repeat, repeat. This beat could have been interesting if it had just stayed as an instrumental and changed up throughout the song, but the addition of Lennox hinders any legitimate exploration. (5)

RAJ: I feel kind of bad for Zomby here. Dude clearly went all out to create a banger that's begging for a grime rapper to drop a double-time verse on it - what he gets is a bored Panda Bear half asleep on the couch after chugging too much Nyquil. Also: this never bugged me too much on Tomboy because the actual music is good enough to make it irrelevant, but why can't Panda Bear just go all Sigur Ros and sing beautiful nonsense? What he does instead is sing incredibly obvious/dumb lyrics as if they're some earth-shattering cosmic epiphany. "Things fall apart that are meant to last - no one knows why"? Look up entropy and pass the Funyuns, bro. (2)

ANDY: Definitely better in theory than in practice, this song ends up mostly repetitive, where it could have been intriguing. Thom Yorke would have knocked it out of the park. (4)

PAT: Andy, I kinda have to agree with you on that one -- at least Thomboy can legitimately change up his vocal rhythm and delivery. Lennox would benefit from some quality time learning how to spit real bubblegum with Scatman John... or maybe Zomby should just include Scatman John on his next collaboration. (4)