Zeal

Szron come from Poland, they consist of two members and they were formed in 2000. During these years they have released two demos, six split and two full length albums. “Zeal” is the fourth full length work of the band, which was released in 2010 and it contains five compositions of thirty three minutes of duration. Musically, Szron play harsh, raw Black Metal of European school.

In the first two tracks the riffs which rule have the sound and structure of punk sound, something that is lost almost completely in the following three tracks. Generally the riffs mainly are mid tempo, but without the fast parts being left out and they mostly exist in the last three tracks. Szron, although the structure of repetition exist widely in the way that they compose their tracks, they have achieved, despite the quite long size of the tracks, to create nice and interesting riffs, full of feelings and passion, and to structure them so as not to become tedious and to keep the listener’s interest irreducible. They are minimalistic, straightforward and they create feelings of total nihilism, destruction and hate.

The guitars are distorted but they can be clearly heard, while they are played with good technique and much passion. The bass fills the sound well, but it can’t be heard clearly and in some parts it creates noise. The drums have interesting lines and fill the compositions very nicely both in the mid and in the fast parts. The vocals are raw, harsh Black Metal vocals, that although they lack of originality, they are quite expressive and they make the feeling more intense. The production is bassy and dirty, as much as it should be in order to fit to the style of the compositions and not to make the listen difficult. The band hasn’t interfered much with the mix having left almost untouched that rehearsal character of the mix that it fits to the minimalism and the raw approach of their music, but they have tried to make the sound massive with depth. The lyrics are written in English and they absolutely fit to the feelings that the music creates to the listener, they speak about total destruction, hate to human race, while there are also tracks that refer to Satan.

“Zeal” is a quite good album that although it follows some much-used standards, it has quite interesting compositions with the personality of the band imprinted in them. Surely those who search for harsh-raw Black Metal will like the album, so buy it without having any hesitation. The rest of you listen to it because it is quite a good work which deserves your attention.