The Nefilim
Zoon

It often happens that bands dedicated to death metal, or any genres belonging to the extreme sphere, over time decide to soften their sounds and embrace dark tones. However, it is much less common for us to witness the opposite process.

This is the case with Carl McCoy, the unforgettable leader of the legendary Fields of the Nephilim, who decides to refresh his proposal by starting a new project, the Nefilim (how imaginative!), and releasing an album of virulent industrial-influenced thrash-death. Not devoid, of course, of those dark/gothic influences that have always characterized his music. The continuity with the mother band is obvious from the project's name, and so this "Zoon," unnoticed in 1996, manages to combine Slayer-like violence with gothic rock vibes. Yet it ends up disappointing both early fans and those the launch of this "new" formula was intended to win over.

Personally speaking, I don't dislike this "Zoon" at all: while it's undeniable that it doesn't write an indelible page in the history of extreme music, it must be said that it represents a rather original attempt to revive McCoy's talent. A talent that, after shining in masterpieces like "The Nephilim" and "Elizium," seemed destined to wither and fade fatally into nothingness over the years. Class and charisma, therefore, are not lacking in this "Zoon," reinforced by a new formation and a newfound energy and freshness. And where the Fields appear to me as damnably too tacky for dark environments (in my opinion not quite up to the level of the various Sisters of Mercy and Christian Death), I must admit that the metal guise definitely suits the excesses and tragic visions of the historic singer.

"Zoon," first of all, is fascinating because it is a concept: a science fiction concept in which, it seems to me, a turbulent love story unfolds. In the background: a grim "1984" scenario. And it is no coincidence that the protagonist’s adventures reek of a desperate "escape from lobotomy," an extreme solution in a dehumanized society, dominated by a system of coercion and manipulation that leaves very little room for the vital and libertarian impulses of meticulously controlled and heterodirected men. Musically speaking, it all materializes as a claustrophobic "post-modern" metal tainted by vile industrial intrusions. What surprises, however, is McCoy's voice, effected from start to finish, which delivers a quite respectable growl (!!!), something we would hardly expect from an old glory of the eighties' dark scene like him (a growl that, in fact, does not stem from training but rather from the hoarseness of a rotten throat, ravaged by alcohol, cigarettes, and all sorts of excesses).

Paul Miles, Cian Houchin, and Simon Rippin, on guitar, bass, and drums respectively, set up a truly remarkable wall of sound, in some respects comparable to the Fear Factory of the time, although the industrial attitude should not be misleading: samples and effects are merely the outer shell, the rotten crust dripping with obsessions of a work that essentially turns its gaze to the past. Thrash metal and decadent rock are indeed the fundamental axes on which the album moves, and it is precisely between these two poles that the tracks oscillate, violent yet always illuminated by a pronounced melodic spirit and warmed by an emotionality scarcely found in a pure and hard thrash metal album. Consider, for example, the miraculous coexistence of a beautiful "Shine," an epic ballad in the typical Fields of the Nephilim style, where McCoy's voice finally returns clean (so to speak!), with the duo "Venus" and "Pazuzu," representing instead the more violent phase of the album: tracks that more or less unabashedly draw from Slayer’s repertoire (the first, in fact, plunders a riff from "Angel of Death," while the second flaunts with the main riff of "Post Mortem," another classic taken from the seminal "Reign in Blood").

The last part of the album softens into dark and introspective tones, which evidently cater to McCoy’s gothic and visionary soul. The three parts of the massive title track, crossed by icy synths and samples in the background, outline a compelling climax of pathos and emotions, in which a versatile McCoy gives his best, before definitively stepping aside and leaving the spotlight to the unsettling moods of the closing "Coma": a desolate noise catharsis, which has the flavor of an electro-shock. Thus, the defeat of the "humanity in man" is completed, ruthlessly crushed by the will of the System, chained to a metal chair and lobotomized.

"Zoon," ultimately, is a work that, while marching on the tracks of tradition, ends up paradoxically sounding fresh and original, precisely because of the musicians' ability to marry two worlds so distant and in some ways irreconcilable: a rotten jewel which, with this review, I intend to bring back from the mire of time and polish, so that its black light may illuminate the minds of a generation of listeners perhaps more open-minded than the one that greeted it with lukewarm indifference in '96.