B-Sides Review: Zola Jesus

Tonight's B-Sides was Zola Jesus. Only a few days after playing to a sold out Bowery Ballroom in NYC, the act came to Grantham, PA - population: Messiah College.

Before the show, I knew nothing about Zola Jesus. I didn't even know that that wasn't her real name. It's a pseudonym for Nika Roza Danilova. "Zola Jesus" is a lot easier to remember ...and to say. Not knowing anything about her, when I walked into B-Sides and was ...well, shocked. I guess I had heard through the grape vine that her music was dark, but this was kinda disturbing. In the moments that I debated leaving, someone clued me in to the fact that there was an opener. It may have been good to someone, but definitely not to me. I was banking on Zola being worth it.

As it turns out, it totally was. Just hearing "dark" really doesn't describe too many things very well. Within the spectrum of dark there is everything from the angry to the depressed to the sadistic. Somewhere, nowhere near those extremes, is Zola Jesus.

To paint a better picture, you need details such as: Danilova took 10 years of opera lessons, she's young and really tiny, the instrumentation is: Zola, drums, and 3 synth players, and they have a sound that could fill a stadium. We're talking huge, deep, boomy vocals, slow, rhythmic toms, and layer upon layer of dark synth. This sound would fill a stadium in the way that an 80s rock ballad would, but with a completely different presence.

And presence was a huge part of this show. Throughout the show, a projector projected screens of white noise and slow, pulsing patterns onto the band, casting their shadows on the screen behind them. This strange arrangement allowed Zola's trance-like dancing and drape-like thing-that-she-was-wearing to become part of the light show. This reminded me of Maynard from the band Tool, but a lot less terrifying.

Eventually, the stage was just too constraining for Zola. The music moved her onto tables, chairs, and even trash cans. Then, after parading around the Union on both floors, she returned to the stage, everyone got up, and they left.