While Cut Copy’s previous releases saw them producing music predominately along the lines of neon-drenched electro-pop/rock meant for the dance floor, their third album sounds like it was meant to take you somewhere much higher. Zonoscope glimmers with a certain sonic presence that sort of showers the ears in idyllic ecstasy – so much, that you’ll probably catch yourself looking down to make sure your feet are still on the ground.

This album grooves and glides through the ear canals while inducing a hypnotic bout of movement in the course of funky guitars, cascading drums, and up-tempo dance floor rhythms. The enticing melodies of songs like “Pharaohs and Pyramids,” with fleeting strings fluttering about on a bed of surging synths, seem to call your muscles into motion with a curled finger. At one point, things become a little disco a’la Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” escalating into boogie rapture and taking you on a ride up into the sky. But they didn’t completely leave their pop/rock roots behind, which is made obvious by songs like “Alisa” and even more so “Where I’m Going” – “one of the more pop moments of the album,” according to band guitarist Tim Hoey.

The refreshing thing about bands like Cut Copy is that they’re consistent. Far too often do artists change direction throughout their careers and sometimes lose touch with that “thing” that made us all fall in love with them in the first place, but this isn’t the case with Zonoscope. Yes, it is apparent that Australia’s new-wave faves are trying something new here, but at the same time, it’s also clear that this is just an extension of what they began with – an upgrade, so-to-speak. They haven’t lost that good thing; they’ve just gotten better.

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