Review Summary: Raw. Minimalistic. Dull.
Some bands are content to stick to a formula within their music that has been tried, tested and tired out by the time they get to it. This leads to them releasing more music in that vein, which weakens the style as a whole because the musicians pursuing the genre get lazy and do not leave their mark on the genre.
Zegota takes that preconception and twists it. From the chilling saxophone intro in
A March to the Dead Sea to the crunching hardcore riffs of
Thrones for the Worth, Graves for the Rest or the draining Ohio, this album has a variety of sounds, all nerve-grindingly raw and open. Not only is it droning at points, it seeks to act like a power drill in your ear, seeking to find all the delicate aspects of your consciousness and rip them into a scattered mess.
Similes aside, the music and vocals are very difficult to put an exact description on, for the simple reason that in most songs the lyrics are extremely sparse. The music itself is just as confusing going from a traditional hardcore punk sound to a world music sound the next minute. The sludge influence on the album is obvious, with some of the songs resembling sounds you'd expect to hear on a record from Isis rather than a hardcore band.
The main fault of this album is it drags. It drags on every track that extends over 4 minutes, simply because the build ups contained within the lengthened songs (Thrones for the Worthy, Ohio) end up achieving little dramatic influence over the whole song. The entire purpose of the song is lost because attention is lost about halfway through. The only one of the songs that manages to keep the excitement going is
A March to the Dead Sea simply because the build-up results in a degree of achievement.
The lyrics focus on world issues that were important at the time of it's release, such as the Bush Administration and how it affected the American society, which is an achievement considering that only half the songs on this album actually contain any lyrics at all. For a debut album, that's a big risk to take, simply because lyrics are a big aspect of most genres, especially hardcore. The other reason that a lack of vocals being a shock is that Zegota is well known as being heavily political and involved in the CrimeInc. movement, meaning that if their message is to be carried across they would usually be expected to use words. However, despite the lack of lyrics over most the songs, the songs that have lyrics pack a punch.
For example:
Quote:
Tin soldiers and Bush is coming
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago
What if you know her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know
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This leads to a very forceful image in the mind of the listener, which is the most desired result for an activist band.
This album has it's moments, but it simply ends up being too long, too drawn out. The shorter songs which demonstrate more, in far less time are much more enjoyable then the extremely long songs, which end up causing a lose in focus, a loss in interest and ultimately a disinterest in the message that the record is trying to put across. The interest level could easily be raised by breaking up [i]A Medley Of Previously Released Songs[i] into its individual songs, rather than putting it across in one un-listenable mass.
Recommended Tracks
A March to the Dead Sea
Nilifen
(Just Give Me) One Moment of Passionate Existence
