Few bands can be simultaneously timeless and relevant, but that’s exactly the hi-wire act Zeus has become as a new millennium hit factory set for a triumphant return with the release of sophomore full-length Busting Visions.

The album follows 2010 Polaris Prize-nominated debut Say Us, which topped CBC charts, won XM The Verge’s award for Album of the Year, garnered stellar reviews from top rock mags like Q and Uncut and led to shows with Broken Social Scene, Metric, Sam Roberts Band, Bright Eyes and Belle & Sebastian.

And with all of this, Busting Visions finds Zeus already hitting the ground running.

Busting Visions’ 14 tracks were penned on bedside motel stationary, coffee shop napkins, the backs of unopened-bill envelopes, scraps of drywall, anything these bright-eyed, shaggy-headed ‘cowboys’ (a band colloquialism) could scratch their manifold musings on. Hooks were hashed out on hotel lobby pianos, backstage pianos and pawnshop guitars in the third-row bench of the van.

And it shows, in the band’s smoking hot live show and in its sweaty romp of a sophomore record, which is chock full of freewheeling hooks, harmonies and riffs galore.

With an exemplary sense of melody, cocksure guitar chops and thunder storming drums, Zeus excel at far more than just one style on Busting Visions’ unrelenting, high energy, raucous workout.

A pedigree of influences from Fats Domino to Michael Jackson and Stevie wonder to Queen bleed into the melodic fabric of saturated, soulful serenades, demonstrating Zeus’ acute understanding of exactly what it is that makes the best songs so good.

Without a doubt, Zeus has every bit of it right at their fingertips - just like all the gods that came before.