The Castle – Zachary Campos (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

For a long time, I had Zachary Campos pegged as a rapper, and just that, someone working within the regular sonic ebbs and flows, beats and bars of that world. But then I listened closer and realised that the instrumentation that he brought to his tracks came from a more rock or post-punk place. Rapid re-evaluations ensued.

And his latest salvo of songs, The Castle, gives me pause for thought again. Not only have the big bombastic sounds been replaced by his own ukulele playing, but his vocals have evolved from slightly world-weary rapping to solid singer-songwriter vocals. The result sees him slip from the hard-edged vibe of the streets into more bucolic and relaxed territory. And if he hasn’t quite reinvented himself as a folk artist, here, he is certainly leaning in that direction here.

By the time you get to Allegory, the third song of the five and undoubtedly the sonic centrepiece of the EP, you realize that he has a great voice, more than dynamic enough to carry this off, and also that he has a way with words that wasn’t truly on display before within the rap confines that he found himself.

Luna shows this way with words and displays a neat ability to blend the language of the street with that of the sonnet, a clever blend of styles from the realistic to the nursery rhyme – the highlight for me being the excellent rhyming of thump with chump. This couplet showing his ability to run from the Byronic to the moronic in just a few short words, though knowingly so, which is the only way that you get away with it.

Just when you think you understand Zachary Campos, he throws you a curveball, and none so unexpected as The Castle. But perhaps more than the revelations that comes with his unveiling this new direction is the thought that lingers of, well, if he can shift gears this quickly, what will be delivered next?

What indeed.