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Review by Darren Gawle

Zolty Cracker should be the band you'd love to hate. They were the stinky hippies at the next campsite over when you were five, singing cider-soaked renditions of the Beatles' White Album all night long ("oll de chidren sey HAAAAYYY BUNGALOW BIIILLL!"). But no, those cheeky bastards in Zolty Cracker have to go ahead and be so goddamn lovable.

You gotta love 'em because they're one of the bands for whom the term 'everything but the kitchen sink' was invented. Gilles Zolty could have his band turn into a one-trick pony, filling the void between the Violent Femmes and the Stone Temple Pilots, and still have something of an audience, but instead (thankfully) chooses to stay one of the few fresh items on Vancouver's menu. Why not add klezmer-style clarinet to "En & On"? "Answer Me" gets beefed up by Moog and Rhodes samples from Mars, and "Pretty Feeling" reads like a meeting between David Essex and Mercury Rev.

And, as is their wont, Gilles, Annie and Wayne keep on grinning like the Puck triplets. They're one of the best bands we've got, and you get the feeling they know it, too.

Artist Contact Info: Centrepoint, PO Box 19506, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, V5T 4E7, zolty@uniserve.com