| | Full Review | Ratings (279) |
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| 4.0 excellent | TheManMachine | August 4th 17 |
Kinda comes off as a brusque draft for an ingenious amalgam, but genuinely ingenious it surely is. And seemingly sweeping at 9 tracks in ~25 minutes -- 3 of which provide amply sacrilegious interludes -- the brevity is honestly a bolster if anything. Amalgam At Hand: black black metal, anti-god straightup spirituals, Ray Charles, glitchy electro-hype, Tom Waits, crystal-laden hidden rooms in NES games, chants+chains melding with digitized double bass+scuzzy screechin'. And yep, somehow so seamlessly and righteously rousing.
1 Bumps | Bump |
| 4.0 excellent | Henry | July 13th 16 |
Really cool fucking album. The catch is that you have to have an ear for exceptionally weird music and you have to look past the sloppiness and haphazardness of the styles put together. If you're like me, sloppiness might even be a plus for you. This work crams together elements of black spirituals, black metal, and various forms of electronic music, among other sounds, with little care for the consequences. This results in an exceptionally diverse and oddly satisfying, somehow cohesive listening experience. The songs are pretty well put together and the vocal performances deserve special mention. Manuel Gagnuex really manages to conjure a massive amount of authentic feeling soul. So authentic that you wouldn't be remiss in thinking the croons could've been sampled from Alan Lomax's library. Some of the metal riffs and electronic parts can wind up sounding pretty cheesy, but that's forgivable. The recording could be better, but in true lo-fi/black metal spirit, it isn't. It's an interesting project to say the least. Also, I feel an odd connection to this because I'm a black guy that happens to actually be into black metal. This is a record for music lovers that are comfortable outside of their comfort zones. It's also probably a hipster's wet dream.
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| 3.0 good | zaruyache | July 5th 16 |
It's a fun--albeit kinda dumb--record. Described as "American slave and black metal" the
record features mostly chants and bluesy "slave" singing with metal moments woven in for
points of contrast and climax. There's just something evil about the visions this music
conjures up--of black men on a chain gang singing soulful odes to Satan, or their wishing
death upon holy men, and it makes the record so strangely satisfying. While the metal
moments aren't spectacularly arranged (and could've been a bit louder in the mix, tbh), they
serve their purpose of highlighting the vocals fairly well. It's a short record, but it's
satisfying in a really weird way just because of how "out there" it is, conceptually.
1 Bumps | Bump |
| 3.2 good | Erwann S. EMERITUS | December 18th 24 |
Zeal and Ardor's smashing of black metal and spirituals had too sloppy of an execution for Z'n'A's debut record to be as impacting as their second album would be. Shame 'cause when Gagneux manages to seamlessly blend all his influences together, it's a slapper (the opener, "Come on Down").
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| 2.5 average | 8genre | November 24th 19 |
love the concept of the album, but the black metal feels so weak the way it was produced.
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| 2.0 poor | Jared Wegenast | October 19th 18 |
Great songs, but the production and lack of genre-cohesiveness make this LP almost runlistenable. 'Stranger Fruit' makes this one look even more pitiful.
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| 2.0 poor | Arokan | December 27th 17 |
There's only one way to put this: Sounds good, doesn't work
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| 3.5 great | cjbizzlebizzle | August 16th 17 |
Devil is Fine is an album that is great to experience completely blind without any knowledge of what you are about to get yourself into. A mixture of Spirituals and Black Metal with some random electronic bits thrown sounds goofy conceptually but Zeal and Ardor pull it off here. The black metal, spiritual combo is the meat of the content and these sounds are beyond complimentary. The combination of these sounds creates a creepy, ritualistic atmosphere that is seemingly unique to this record. The lyrics chosen for the spirituals also compound onto this and somehow become catchy in a strange way. THE RIVER BED WILL RUN RED WITH THE BLOOD OF THE SAINTS AND THE BLOOD OF THE HOLY is officially burnt into my synapses forever. The only major complaint is the fact that the electronic elements, only at certain times, feel totally out of place. It would be very interesting to see a full length album dedicated to a more depressive black metal plus spiritual combo.
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| 2.0 poor | Jade | July 13th 16 |
airtight, consistently engaging and fresh. One of the most interesting releases of the year.
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| 2.0 poor | NewBallistics | June 13th 16 |
Give the title track a listen, it's kinda cool. Everything else however seems half-baked.
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| 4.0 excellent | Lexpool | April 12th 25 |
| 3.5 great | ATTA | September 3rd 24 |
| 4.0 excellent | Inveigh | August 25th 24 |
| 3.5 great | Timmy | January 18th 23 |
| 5.0 classic | Dooplo | December 28th 22 |
| 5.0 classic | MewCore | December 7th 22 |
| 3.5 great | altmjw | October 8th 22 |
| 4.5 superb | ARDCWE | June 28th 22 |
| 4.5 superb | Matty CONTRIBUTOR | June 10th 22 |
| 5.0 classic | eloli | March 11th 22 |
| 2.5 average | Elynna | March 10th 22 |
| 3.0 good | arf | March 1st 22 |
| 3.5 great | Oobaloo | February 16th 22 |
| 3.5 great | tcarafi | February 14th 22 |
| 4.0 excellent | Sally J. | December 23rd 21 |
| 3.5 great | JoneHK | December 6th 21 |
| 4.0 excellent | list3r | December 12th 20 |
| 4.0 excellent | Bridge4 | September 6th 20 |
| 4.0 excellent | Evan | July 11th 20 |
| 3.5 great | Suyan | February 27th 20 |
| 3.0 good | GamamJ | February 6th 20 |
| 4.0 excellent | dcube | October 29th 19 |
| 3.0 good | Prole | October 28th 19 |
| 3.0 good | Jergal | September 3rd 19 |
| 4.0 excellent | Jaxer | August 23rd 19 |
| 3.5 great | josh | August 19th 19 |
| 4.0 excellent | HybridF | July 23rd 19 |
| 4.0 excellent | kleggi | April 9th 19 |
| 2.0 poor | blou52 | March 27th 19 |
| 3.5 great | mrfixit | February 13th 19 |
| 3.0 good | Wolfe | January 2nd 19 |
| 4.0 excellent | outburst | December 29th 18 |
| 4.0 excellent | Grzka | December 6th 18 |
| 4.0 excellent | Winndex | November 21st 18 |
| 2.0 poor | Runeii | October 17th 18 |
| 3.5 great | Macck | August 11th 18 |
| 4.0 excellent | AGumby | March 29th 18 |
| 2.5 average | Javier | March 9th 18 |
| 4.0 excellent | P003htb | October 6th 17 |
| 3.0 good | N2B3J | October 1st 17 |
| 2.0 poor | Toms | August 28th 17 |
| 3.5 great | Thor | August 17th 17 |
| 3.5 great | jsaf7 | August 10th 17 |
| 3.5 great | Agonba | July 12th 17 |
| 3.5 great | DRusso | April 6th 17 |
| 4.0 excellent | Soupy | February 28th 17 |
| 4.0 excellent | Soupy | February 28th 17 |
| 3.5 great | rid | November 3rd 16 |
| 2.5 average | fejoob | October 1st 16 |
| 4.0 excellent | Brett W | September 28th 16 |
| 2.0 poor | Ulshad | September 25th 16 |
| 3.0 good | neikos | September 10th 16 |
| 4.0 excellent | OSEL | July 28th 16 |
| 2.5 average | bmelt | July 21st 16 |
| 4.5 superb | IrishC | July 15th 16 |
| 4.5 superb | gumi | June 10th 16 |
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