Megan Frost writes a review of Orla Gartland’s single, Zombie!
After releasing her last single ‘More Like You’ this year, with its iconic muted piano and subject of jealousy, the London-based, Irish singer-songwriter Orla Gartland is back with her energetic ‘Zombie!’ that will feature on her soon-to-be debut album. Even from the title, we can see the single is exclamatory and, likewise, Gartland informs fans across social media that ‘Zombie!’ is about suppressing emotion so much to the point where it has to be released – as outlined by her scream in the outro.
Gartland uses a most striking chorus, filled with energetic punchy drums and reverbing guitar riffs. Her witty lyrics focus on a relationship with someone who buries their feelings, as she directs it to them: ‘When all of your body’s burning up/You live like a zombie, turn it off/Push it down and it comes back round again”. Gartland’s talent for creating catchy lyrics filled with playful rhymes is showcased here, yet moments like the aforementioned scream and build-ups to each chorus indicates a deliberate freeing from the structure of the song. The single is a mixture of structure, with its finely-tuned lyrics and the acoustic guitar in the verses, and chaos, through the elements of the song that try to break from the structure such as the powerful percussion. This combination allows Gartland to have a composition that loses none of its precision, whilst being able to convey the message of the song with the idea that emotions cannot always be contained and inevitably erupt.
