It is fun to follow the progress of a band that you have recently discovered.
Zonaria is one such band. I remember it like yesterday. It was lunch-hour at work and I was reading the news-paper to see if there was something interesting. A huge murky picture covered both sides of the paper and the headline was ''Zonaria''. A new, fresh and young melodic death metal band had entered the scene. I looked for a while and I got their debut album
Infamy and The Breed which was better than I expected it to be. The music was highly influenced by
Hypocrisy no doubt about that. Heaviness and speed was mixed with atmospheric background keyboard melodies that created an apocalyptic vibe to the music. Time was passing by and in 2008
Zonaria released their second album,
The Cancer Empire. This time things had changed and developed. Their melodic death metal was mixed with some black metal influences, and the result became very good I must say.
Infected by your greed, the masses will kneel
But a world led by you will never heal
The Cancer Empire is almost a completely different album compared to their first album. The screams have now turned into a much harsher growl, the drummer has increased his skills and the overall music has been slightly beefed up.
Infamy And The Breed is more or less a
Hypocrisy album a la
Zonaria but
The Cancer Empire has more of… everything actually. All the
Dimmu Borgir influenced orchestral elements has given the band a broader sound. But the music does not sound so similar to the first album; the biggest differences are that the growls, better variety among the drum patterns and symphonic elements has made the music more mature so to say. Variety and dynamics has been slightly increased as well. There are some non-stop death assaults like
Slaughter Is Passion,
Praise The Eradication and
Termination Process. Most of the tracks have lots of heavy and pounding moments but some tracks manage to stand out thanks to the melodies.
War With The Inferior,
Contra Mundum and
The Icon And The Faceless are some of the more melodic oriented tracks.
Some things are better untold
At war with the inferior
Strike down the innocent
The target still remains
The album is very good but it has some smaller flaws. One thing that this album has in common with the first album is that the music tends to drag. Many songs are good but there are no tracks that manage to shine better than the others. All tracks stays in the same area of being good, not very good or extremely good. Things become a bit stiff with time and some repetitiveness will be noticeable, unfortunately. But the band has developed both vocally and instrumentally and that makes me happy. I wished though that the vocal performance would've been a bit more varied because I love Simon's harsh screams. People who liked
The Infamy And The Breed will most likely enjoy this as well. People who like almost any type of melodic death metal will also enjoy this. If you like
Hypocrisy and/or
Dimmu Borgir then you will like
Zonaria.
Positives
+ Very good growl performance
+ The drummer has really improved his skills
+ The atmospheric background melodies are good
+ The small black metal influences made the music a bit darker and heavier
Negatives
- The music tends to get a bit repetitive
- Stiff vocal variety
Recommended Tracks
-- Slaughter Is Passion
-- War With The Inferior
-- Damnation Dressed In Flesh
Final rating: 4/5
