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From the Book of Isaiah, Old Testament:
“Your pomp has been brought down to Sheol,
along with the music of your harps.
Beneath you a bed of maggots is spread,
and your blanket is worms.
How you have fallen from heaven,
morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!
You said in your heart,
«I will ascend to the heavens;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.
I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.»
But you have been brought down to Sheol,
to the depths of the pit!”
And what if spiritual, instead of meeting blues, soul, jazz, or R’n’B, had attracted a different genre with its sacred music lyrics, like black metal, djent, mathcore, or electronicore?!
No Mahalia Jackson, no Al Green, no Whitney Houston or perhaps John Legend, but Zeal & Ardor would have been born.
2013: Zeal & Ardor is born! Hail and glory to the newborn!
A few years earlier, in 1989, from the union of an African-American gospel singer and a Swiss percussionist, who moved from salsa to funk, in Basel was born the "Luciferian" child: Manuel Gagneux.
Initiated into the piano and saxophone, he soon turned his attention to the electric guitar and to musical influences different from his family ('Venom', 'Slayer', 'Merciful Fate' and many Scandinavian bands such as 'Emperor', 'Darkthrone', or 'Enslaved').
The figure that makes this "Stranger Fruit" (2018, MVKA Music edition) an album worth listening to at least once, unlike the previous EP "Devil is Fine", is the legendary Kurt Ballou, founder, guitarist, and producer of "Converge", here called for mixing and co-production with the Swiss-American.
For this album "Zeal & Ardor" branches out; it's no longer a one-man show (Gagneux supplying vocals, guitar, and production) but a true band (Denix Wagner and Marc Obrist on vocals and choruses, Tiziano Volante on guitars, Mia Rafaela Dieu on bass, Marco Von Allmen on drums) available to the ideas of the creator of the thread tying Basel to New York, exploring the links between black music and black metal.
With "Intro" the average listener can already decide if they are willing to explore this journey because even with the radio-friendly "Gravedigger's Chant" we are immediately shown a bit of Hozier (much of it is felt in "You Ain't Coming Back"), a bit of Awolnation-style electronics (remember "Sail"?), drums pulled back, back and some razor-sharp swipes turned to guitar. Along the same wonderfully contaminated line are "Ship on Fire" and "Stranger Fruit", the title track of the album.
The encounter between the sacred scriptures and mathcore happens amidst blues openings, electronic transitions, screamo, double pedal, and odd times in the elaborate "We Can't Be Found" and "Fire of Motion" of "Dillingeresque" craftsmanship.
"Servants", which brings to mind something from "The Jesus Lizard", is perhaps the emblematic track of this musical melting pot. Screeching guitars, jazzy cymbals, toms, snare, and kicks that pierce your guts and clog your trachea, voice perfectly contextualized and characterized on words that wink at spiritual…
“Now listen here, you can join us
Or you can die in the fire
No way that you're coinless
This is the end of the line
When the servants have their way”
...and one eye carefully looking at Blake Shelton's country, for an audience of protesting Protestant pastors, eager to make their ears bleed.
The elephantine "Don't You Dare" and "Row Row" counterpose the appreciable ideas, yet still slightly out of context, of "The Hermit", "The Fool", and "Solve", ambiance tracks that have yet to shine in their own light amidst the infernal soot.
There are guitars that open and guitars that close. The immediate reference is to "Time" by Hans Zimmer, while in reality, they lead us into an icy blanket that envelops us with a brutal blues, genuinely sweetened by piano pills. This is the closure of Z&A, with "Built on Ashes":
“Don't, darling, die on me now
We'll dig this grave close to your home
Don't you fix your eyes on me now
We never said you'd come back home”.
A surprising album, with very few flaws, that rewards listening, certainly not light, but after all, the project is not trivial. The attempt to reconcile the restless with the peaceful is not easy; it is not always possible to coexist well between good and evil; even night and day need temporal transitions to reconcile with dawn and dusk, and in this work, Gagneux seems to successfully accommodate with the right style, the light-bringer, Lucifer, and his angelic cherub side, Samael.
“When you dance with the devil, the devil doesn't change. It's the devil who changes you.”
Tracklist
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