Zeal & Ardor: Chimerism
ZEAL & ARDOR have come a long way in seven years. Starting life as a way of proving a racist 4chan troll wrong, they’ve grown into a tour de force in avant-garde, forward thinking music with three well-received albums under their belt that explored extremity, balancing old spiritual chants and black metal. Their latest, fourth album GREIF is, in mastermind Manuel Gagneux’s own words, a “spin-off episode” from the main continuity that’s threaded through their first three albums and a bold exploration of new sounds and textures. It’s unlike anything they’ve done before, so we caught up with Manuel to talk all things GREIF.
One of the biggest changes between their self-titled and now is that Gagneux might still write everything, but he’s no longer the sole studio member, having brought in his longtime touring band to help not only record but shape the songs in new ways. “[They] have given seven years of their lives to my silly project,” Gagneux laughs, “by now, not having them on the record would be cruel or megalomania!” The plurality of voices also lends a new, fuller dimension to GREIF and has enhanced his original vision for it. “There’s tonnes of moments and tiny changes that I just couldn’t have come up with myself,” he admits.
The big step on GREIF is its fearless expansion away from the established ZEAL & ARDOR sound. Its lead single, to my ilk, was a folksy piece bereft of the heavy call and response fans are used to. “This is the most uncharacteristic thing we could’ve done,” Gagneux grins. “Following it up with Clawing out was our way of saying, from here to here on this album, everything goes.” A far cry from to my ilk, Clawing out is a menacingly off-kilter piece that ratchets up the tension throughout.
For Gagneux, “the worst case scenario would be becoming our own cover band where we just regurgitate albums that already exist.” His self-described “playful approach to music” means he’s always looking to do something new that excites him, and with GREIF the result is a colourful new album that embraces that playful spirit occasionally quite literally. une ville vide is a prime example; it utilises a Game Boy synthesiser emulator to create “a shortcut to my childhood” as Gagneux puts it, “it disarms you emotionally to listen to the melody.. It fucks with your Super Nintendo memories!”
With that desire to ensure he retained that playful side of making music, “my only barometer was if it sounds good or evokes something emotionally,” he explains. “There’s merit to bands who stick with their formula, but I couldn’t do it convincingly, it would just be a heartless record. Nobody wants to listen to Devil Is Fine: Tokyo Drift,” he laughs. That said, “I still wanted at least one classic ZEAL & ARDOR song on the album,” he explains of Hide In Shade, a song that is perhaps the closest thing to what fans might have expected from GREIF rather than the fearlessly creative curveball Gagneux and co. have thrown.
That said, it’s still something deeply rooted in the band themselves and something that holds them together. The greif is a mythical creature, part lion, part snake and part bird and also part of a custom in the band’s hometown of Basel, Switzerland. This mythical creature parades the streets during a traditional festival, a symbol of working class people baulking at the rich and oppressive elites on the other side of the river to it. “We all experience that as children,” he notes of the tradition; “the greif unites us as a band.”
“It’s quite fitting we have this chimera as the mascot,” Gagneux says of the recording expansion to include that full band. “The imagery came really early actually, it was our factor that we all have some experience with. It’s like our Stephen King origin story where all the kids have their secret,” he grins. It’s not a concept record, though, nor rooted in a particular moment like the seething Wake Of A Nation EP released in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in the US. “This is more personal… [but] this is a collection of songs, like tapas, where you can mix and match.”
If there’s one thing that becomes increasingly apparent as we keep talking, it’s that Gagneux has an irrepressible comedic streak, cracking jokes regularly alongside his explanation of making music being something that needs to be playful for him. Part of that extends to one of the reasons to my ilk was chosen as lead single, with it being their softest song released to date and yet the band being so revered by the metal world. “There is some piss taking,” he agrees. “We have this unique situation where we can have something funny can happen, and it would be such a shame if we didn’t take it. I’m not saying everything has to be a joke – but some things can be!”
What’s not a joke, though, is the care that’s gone into shaping ZEAL & ARDOR, and by extension GREIF, into the fearless creative endeavour it is. A far less immediate album than its predecessors, it also packs far more colours and layers when you scratch beneath its surface. Revealing those moods and new emotions takes a few listens – not something always afforded in the modern music world, and a risk they’re aware of – but one they were always going to take.
GREIF is out now via self-release.
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