Since it’s conception, I have always been weary of Mathcore. It’s a genre with a very, very fine line of what is interesting and intelligent, and what is just at 30 minute-odd mindless atonal wank-session. What I find impressive is that, in my mind, zenziC stand with one foot in each park, balancing your expected Mathcore sections with demented circus-y sections, interesting piano and violin interludes, and – what the fuck, is that Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley? I jest you not avant-garde followers, zenziC actually feature a Black Metal version of the infamous Rick-Roll in the bonus track at the end of the release, which brought about one of the biggest bouts of laughter from me which a song ever has. The track can be very well described with this picture.
After an interesting opener and rather shaky second song, you begin to understand what this album will contain. Almost mandatory for Avant-Garde music, zenziC make heavy use of genre-jumping and -blending, although the blending here – erm, was that just some samples from Mario games? – sorry, I digressed a bit there. The blending here is more like genre-layering, taking different genres and having each instrument play in a different style, rather than mixing them seamlessly such as bands like maudlin of the Well. This layering I feel detracts from the musicallity EP, but adds to the tone of madness.
The following paragraph is devoted to listing strange moments in this album; the aforementioned Rick-Roll and Mario samples, samples from Metal Gear Solid, All Your Base Are Belong To Us references, random Black Metal vocals in one of the tracks, speaking in Spanish for no reason and that bit after the vocals say “Divided By Zero”. I cannot describe that moment as anything except madness. It’s like someone (most likely Chuck Norris) actually managed to divide by zero and the universe exploded. You’ll need to hear it to know what I mean. These are just some of the moments in the album which make you emit sounds of confusion and/or disbelief from your vocal chords.
On first listen I likened zenziC to a band known as Estradashpere, who I have never really “got”. I always have and still think of them as un-cohesive and uninteresting. But after a few more play-throughs I decided that zenziC do not fall under this description and that I actually really enjoyed the album. If you expect a band that takes their music seriously, then you will be sorely displeased, but the beauty of this project is in the humour inherent in the madness. There is some nice experimentation if you look underneath the pseudo-satire and some point-blank interesting passages alongside this. I will end this review by recommending this album to anyone wanting something which they will NEVER have heard before. The album is free to download and is worth the bandwidth just for the bonus track.
Simon Brand
VITALS:
Release: 2009
Label: Independent
Avantgenre: Rick Astley Metal
Duration: 26:52
Origin: Portugal
Official site: http://www.zenzicmusic.com/
Review online since: 19.08.2009 / 14:04:15
| TRACKLIST:
01 – Pianissimo Epilogue (ironically A Prologue) |
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