Babylon Zoo
The Boy With the X-Ray Eyes

Today I woke up with a song in mind. When I started to gain some clarity (more or less during the kitchen-to-bathroom walk to brush my teeth), I reworked it and passed it (as much as I could) through the filter of reason. Delving into memories, the song takes on shape, title, author, and album. Then I remembered how attached I was to this album at thirteen (we're talking about 1996), I remembered how the band's video struck me, and I wanted to dedicate a few lines to it. Ladies and gentlemen, raise your hand if you don’t remember "Spaceman", the hit from England's Babylon Zoo, from the album "The Boy With The X-Ray Eyes"!

The album, let's be honest, is a bit mediocre. It is rock built on a solid electronic base that creates pillars around which the serpentine voice of the Anglo-Indian singer Jas Mann wanders. The themes, repeated across all eleven tracks, are always the same: religious mysticism, mythology, themes related to astronomy and the meaning of signs, veiled attacks on politics and the habits of our time, faith in nature as a pantheistic solution to the ills of man. Occasionally, among the tracks, there are some good moments, sometimes offered by the singer's voice, sometimes by a guitar riff, other times by a beautiful atmosphere created by a piano or electronics. However, the tracks that have always struck me most from the album, at thirteen as now, are reduced to less than half, mostly grouped in the first part.

An atmospheric start with the sweet voice of Babylon (honestly, a bit boring) opens the door to the first track "Animal Army", with its dark-rock rhythm that is very catchy. The song is well made, there's no denying it, evoking images of large chaotic metropolitan spaces seen from above, with people bustling in often bleak and degraded environments, each absorbed with themselves.

An impactful start, no doubt, which flows into the album's hit, that "Spaceman" which made the singer famous. Once again, the keyboards introduce the song (this time with a better intro), followed by the famous sampled chorus that immediately falls into the claustrophobic refrain. I seem to recall the song's video, with a carousel in a lunar landscape with Babylon dressed in white... Even if that wasn’t the video played on TV back then, I have to say that the image fits well, blending the "futuristic" sensation evoked by listening to the song. The track is well-structured in all its parts, alternating between more dreamlike sections (entrusted to the keyboards) and more rocking ones, with some inserts here and there that perhaps hint at the mysticism and oriental influence that surely is part of the singer’s culture.

Next comes "Zodiac Sign", more subdued and melancholic than the previous ones. This track has always surprised me; although it’s not a masterpiece (and might even seem familiar), it manages to appeal and evoke a decent pathos (especially during the verses), probably thanks to the guitars, which are more present and prominent here.

The other two notable tracks are "Confused Art" and "Is Your Soul For Sale". The former follows the path set by the previous tracks and could be seen as the perfect missing half of "Zodiac Sign", whose weakness I have always thought lay in the chorus. This song instead focuses a lot on the impact and immediacy of the chorus, which despite being a style we’ve heard many times before in other songs, remains convincing.

The tenth track, "Is Your Soul For Sale", has always fascinated me the most on the entire album. It is a dark and atmospheric ballad centered around the piano-voice duo, with keyboard additions becoming more and more prominent. Mann plays all his cards here with his voice, maintaining a consistently sad and calm tone, but one that reaches fair levels. The ballade has atmosphere and undeniably demands listening, standing out, in my view, as the album's strongest piece along with "Spaceman".

The album doesn't offer much more. It was nice to discuss it because I remembered when I used to listen to it, what I did and how I felt in those days, but this is purely subjective. Objectively, I can say that if you are curious and happy to rediscover, in addition to a great hit from 1996, other good elements from the young Babylon Zoo, give it a listen and see what you think: you'll surely agree with me that there are some good elements, but the album is definitely of mediocre quality. A pity!