Everytime I think of Zelienople I see a moist, green fog hanging in front of me. What I?ve heard by them so far, not a lot though, could well be described as textural ambience surrounded with fringes of old moss and droning lo-fi folkrock shadows. This new LP they?ve done on Tarentel?s Root Strata imprint offers more of the latter than the former while not eschewing some foggy green edges while they?re at it.

?Stone Academy? starts off with ?Plaster Dog? which is based around echoing guitarchords and sporadic vocals looming somewhere inside a timeless vacuum. There?s a sense of ultimate desalienation present in this opening segment, as in not feeling at ease with where they are the moment, searching for a beacon while knowing they will never find it. The following track, ?Fuck Everything?, as well as ?More Mess? on the B side, sounds a lot more secure and automatically less interesting. With vocals reminiscent of Sebadoh era Lou Barlow and a simple looping guitarmelody it might as well be a lost recording of a Barlow project.

The most intriguing moments ?Stone Academy? offers are when they decide to leave songstructures behind and delve into swamps of freefolk-ambience. ?Elephant? illustrates that image in a beautiful way and even when the vocals pop up it doesn?t decrease the mysterious vibe of it all. The two sides of Zelienople that are present on this remarkable album show their unrelenting creativity and even when they do seem to take an easy route they hit you back with a wonderful batch of foggy mystery, it?s in those moments Zelienople really make an impression. 7/10 -- Joris Heemskerk (23 October, 2006)