Driftless Pony Club - Zastera (2016)

With over ten years on the DIY indie rock circuit, Driftless Pony Club has harnessed the power of YouTube to expose their angular, 90s styled indie rock to a diverse and widespread fanbase totally outside of the mainstream music industry. Through his quirky Youtube videos, lead singer Craig Benzine (AKA Wheezy Waiter) has amassed over 575,000 subscribers and pulled in fans from all corners of the world. The Chicago-based crew (Craig Benzine, Matt Weber, Sam Grant, and Nate Bartley) has packed venues in cities across the United States with more shows and more cities in the works.

Overall Zastera is an 11 song album that feels like an hour long. It could have easily been a short EP and I probably would have loved it. However, a lack of focus, priority, and energy that the band members put on this album ultimately make it the worst

Before you read this, I'd like to say I'm a huge fan of Driftless Pony Club. Cholera is one of my favorite albums of all time. While they've never been a perfect band, they always convey raw energy and emotion that not many other bands do, with even the slower tracks like Combustible On Contact delivering heartbreaking lyrics with angry and sometimes despair filled vocal deliveries. I'd also like to say that I'm sorry if I come across as harsh. I respect the band, they are all very great and talented people, and they have been nothing but nice to us fans.

However, it is with a heavy heart that I say I'm disappointed in Zastera. I can't get mad at the band since I know the situations in which this album was recorded. Nearly everyone in the band was too busy to work most of the time, and the album almost didn't come out, considering it was recorded on a shoestring budget. However, this album feels like it has little to offer. It gets too ambitious in some places and not ambitious enough in others. A perfect example of the band being too ambitious is the track In Between Ice Ages which I see as easily being one of the worst tracks the band has made. When I first heard this track I loved it… for the first minute. The bass line immediately hooked me and I was ready for a creative, eerie, dark song that could save the album. But this track drags on for far FAR too long. It beats you over the head with the same thing that hooked me in the beginning, but after almost 5 minutes, it gets incredibly stale. Stuff like this didn't work in Kid Cudi's last album, and it sure as hell doesn't work on this one. On the bright side, that is the worst the album gets.

There are some good tracks on this album, like Chorus Complains, Don't Change the Words, and I Need a Theory, a song that stands out as the best on this album. However, even these songs that sound relatively good suffer from the same problems the rest of the album does: they last too long, and they clearly spent more time on some parts of the songs than others. Most of this album feels forced, and from watching the vlogs from the band, I can tell why. With the exception of In Between Ice Ages, this album isn't outright bad, it's just uninspired. You can tell they had sparks of creativity, since the lyrics are as strong and quirky as ever. This spark of creativity is also shown by the fact that all of these songs have something good about them, whether it's a catchy chorus or an inventive instrumental. But unfortunately, you can't build a 3-6 minute song off of one good idea.

The biggest problem is the lack of energy on this album. Instead of using the low production quality to their advantage to make a more raw sound that the band has successfully pulled off in the past, the band gives uninteresting instrumentals that serve as a background to Craig Benzine's half-assed vocal delivery. The lack of energy was the main reason I was disappointed and deflated by this album. DPC has always had raw energy until this point. I know they still have that energy, too. I saw them live last month and they were phenomenal. Even some of the songs from this album that they performed sounded good because of their energy. However, I feel like the band wanted to hold back on this album to create a softer, more introspective tone. Even though their intentions were pure, it doesn't work with and album like this.

Overall Zastera is an 11 song album that feels like an hour long. It could have easily been a short EP and I probably would have loved it. However, a lack of focus, priority, and energy that the band members put on this album ultimately make it the worst album in Driftless Pony Club's discography.

Bass – Ian Purvis
Drums – Nate Bartley
Guitar – Matt Weber
Vocals – Craig Benzine


Track List:
1. Chorus Complains 06:00
2. Don't Change the Words 03:11
3. I Need a Theory 02:36
4. Don't Mess This Up 05:11
5. I Need a Moment 03:25
6. I Bit into You 03:40
7. I'm Here to Stay 02:45
8. In Between Ice Ages 04:55
9. Nikola Tesla 01:46
10. I Need a Mirror 03:06
11. Sea Monster 05:41