ALBUM REVIEW: Bring Mirrors To The Surface – Zatokrev
Since forming in 2002, Swiss post-metal act ZATOKREV have carved themselves a unique niche in a dark corner of the extreme metal world, blending sludge, doom, post-hardcore and cosmic psychedelia to create music that walks a thin line between bone-shaking heaviness and spiritual, emotional beauty. Unwilling to fit neatly into a single genre, it’s only fitting that their latest full-length album Bring Mirrors To The Surface is being released by Pelagic Records, a label that in recent years has established itself as the home of challenging, boundary-pushing metal.
The record opens with the near ten minute slow burn of Red Storm, a song which builds tension masterfully throughout and almost acts like a test for the listener, asking us if we’re really ready to come on this oppressive, constantly shifting journey with the band. Slow, crushing riffs and a cacophony of drums give way to bass-led psychedelic grooves and passages of swirling, cosmic calm. There’s a lot going on and, at first, it takes a while for it all to really sink in but patience is key with the music of ZATOKREV and will be rewarded by the bucketload. Strap yourself in, clear your mind and you’ll soon feel yourself being pulled along on an otherworldly ride. Second track Blood continues in a similar vein, again playing with the duality of the brutal and the beautiful, the vocal delivery ranging from cataclysmic howls to an ethereal, choral coda.
The Only Voice changes things up from the opening two tracks, veering into blackened hardcore territory, again almost as if the band is making sure we haven’t got too comfortable with what has come before. Here the blastbeats of drummer Frederic Hug combine with the wall-of-sound guitars of Frederyk Rotter and Matthieu Hardouin to create a blistering, almost overwhelming, noise before resolving into a chugging, groove-led breakdown that is perhaps the album’s most traditionally headbanging metal section. Unsurprisingly, Unwinding Spirits (featuring ZEAL & ARDOR) gives us another contrast in sound, this time venturing into a kind of post-metal version of funeral doom. It is crawlingly slow and bleak but its lead guitar and melodic vocal lines also give it an emotional beauty and heft that means it could almost have been created by SIGUR RÓS, if they had been inspired by NEUROSIS and YOB.
Faint has more of a progressive, post-hardcore vibe and is positively frantic compared to Unwinding Spirits. Its time signature jumps around as violently as the pits it will no doubt inspire when played live, its jagged guitars and driving rhythms raging through its three and a half minute runtime. Changes opens in a similarly brutal way, the blackened hardcore blastbeats returning to smack you in the face before the band mellow out once more, heading into mellow soundscapes and shoegaze-influenced territory. Epic album closer Deep Dark Turns Green acts almost as a summary of everything that works so well on Bring Mirrors To The Surface. Here the band returns to a kind of funeral doom that is heavy with emotion, like a multi-layered PALLBEARER. Shimmering vocals and clean picked guitars slowly become overwhelmed by crashing drums, rumbling bass and almost atonal, jagged guitar sections before fading out on a haunting dual lead passage.
Like a lot of Pelagic’s output, this album is not an easy listen, despite the moments of beauty, calm and melody. It takes time to really embed itself into your subconscious. However, if you’re willing to spend the time with it that it deserves, then Bring Mirrors To The Surface, in both its beauty and its oppressive weight, could well be your perfect soundtrack for the coming autumn.
Rating: 8/10
Bring Mirrors To The Surface is out now via Pelagic Records.
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