ZINNIA is the latest musical and artistic incarnation of singer-songwriter Rachael Cardiello, who originated from Montana and now calls Toronto home. ZINNIA has recently released their sophomore album and follow-up to 2019’s Sensations in Two Dots, on the stellar Montana-based label Anything Bagel, entitled Dollar Store Disco. The new album is a dancy dissertation of dissolving relationships. Like an indie-rock ABBA, ZINNIA interweaves dreamy and catchy instrumentation with plenty of playful and vintage-tinged synth tones along with spritely percussion and basswork that keeps the album boogieing.
The album begins with a spacious piano that accompanies Cardiello’s tender, breezy yet yearnful vocal delivery. After a few refrains of “did you/I/we try?”, the track is layered with textures of percussive drum machine, more piano and synth chords before bursting into an anthemic disco-beat and plenty of swirling synth sounds that foreshadow some of the surprises waiting in the songs to come.
“Rebound” sees more dark, piano chords, this time paired with drums that have a rhythmic indie rock feel and a wild west cowboy electric guitar. A dynamic shift to a calmer pre-chorus adds contrast before a refrain that warns of being someone’s relational rebound. A grooving instrumental passage floods up with swelling synths and allows the bass to stand out. With the following song, we learn that there is more to this album than just synths.
There a few times ZINNIA leans into a more rocking guitar-based territory on tracks like “Two Winters Before A Thaw”, “Virginia Ray”, and “Night Be Mine”. These tracks have crunchy guitar chords and add headbanging to the outstanding drumming and use of synths to keep the listener dancing through the recurrent themes of heartbreak and frustrations with love. “Two Winters” has a vocal crescendo that raises the melody to an emotional peak and comes with great lines like “wonder if you’ll ever find love, little country mouse”. “Virginia Ray” has a great distorted sustain synth solo that hovers over a looped noise ball, while “Night Be Mine” has a more driving feel to both the guitars and accenting drum beat and clockwork fills which back up an array of synth tones: some dirty and dramatic, others sweet and flute-like.
True to its name, Dollar Store Disco keeps us moving with “Reaching for You” and “Summer Jam”. The former makes it hard to not go full-Saturday Night Fever, even while Cardiello vulnerably bears her heart while expressing the struggles of doomed lovers. The latter uses a Blue Monday-sounding snare to keep our fists pumping like we’re in a posh 80s club and borrows a line from the Lovin’ Spoonfuls’ own ode to hot summers.
There are also some sparse moments that highlight the emotional core of the record and have more of the big, resonating piano chords. The catchy and repeating chorus of “Outta My Head” will likely get stuck in YOUR head. Sparse instrumentation of bass, drums, and subtle synths are employed in an impactful way on “Folded Origami” to deliver some of the album’s most sorrowful and introspective lines like “Was it when you began to believe in God | That you started to see Evil?”. The album ends as it began, with full piano chords echoing into the ether. This somber ballad offers one last chance to appreciate the beauty and heartbreak that ZINNIA displays vocally.
Dollar Store Disco is dreampop you can cry to while you dance, and is one of my favorite records I have heard yet this year. Anyone who loves the music of Angel Olson or Widowspeak will find lots to enjoy here. Pick up a copy on vinyl or cassette from Anything Bagel.
Written by John Brouk
