Review Summary: Accomplished industrial/metal with traces of new directions.
It seems that the world of industrial music(rock) is in a bit of a flux, that nothing really new that can catch the imagination of fans has truly appeared in a while and that the old, true and tried forces are controlling the genre. Not that the true lovers are complaining, but new winds and ideas might be needed and needed soon.
It could be possible that Zeistencroix (the word doesn’t really mean anything, it just sounded nice to the guys) could be one of those forces. The band leans by Orlando Draven, a Venezuelan expatriate in the US has recently come up with Gemini, a five-track EP, that comes up with some standard moves, but also attempts to bring in something new into the industrial field.
Obviously, there’s trust invested in these guys, since the production duties are shared by Tim Palmer and Bill Metoyer, who among themselves have shared production duties for everybody from Robert Plant, U2, Pearl Jam, Slayer, WASP and a dozen of others.
That already can give you an indication in which Zeistencroix are attempting to go - and that is the mixture of industrial and almost any form of metal, including throat singing. Of course, many have gone that road already, some with more, and quite a lot with less success. But Zeistencroix seems to have cornered the NIN/Marylin Manson take on industrial quite well. And listening to a track like “Saturated”, you get the impression that they can handle the speed metal chops with ease.
On the other hand, it is a track like “Valley of Death” that can indicate the band bringing in some new directions into this field - industrial and Echo and Bunnymen? Could work, why not?
On the evidence of fewer than 20 minutes of music, it is somewhat hard to assess whether Zeistencroix can bring something new and fresh, but the possibilities are there. Let’s see.
