Ask many musicians, working in the fields of stoner/desert rock, sludge and doom, which band has influenced them the most to do what they are doing musically and Black Sabbath is very likely to be the very first name dropping from their lips, however, there are some parts of Europe where if that same question were asked the answer would just as likely be Electric Wizard. Four musicians likely to answer that question with the words Electric and Wizard are Dande Kemppainen (guitar/vocals); Tuukka Niemi (vocals/guitar); Thalia Nivala (bass) and Aapi Pietilä (drums), a quartet from Tampere, Finland working under the collective name Zargenzein. Zargenzein have just dropped their debut EP "Got Electricity?" on Bandcamp, a delicious mix of sludgy distortion drenched doom, sludge and heavy metal that takes its cues not only from Electric Wizard but also the bands #2 inspiration Iron Maiden.
"Inhaling Amazon" kicks off proceedings, this is a song boasting heavy throbbing doomic grooves accompanied by off kilter, slightly dissonant, guitar textures and sampled narrative. The songs dynamics are somewhat reminiscent, in places, of those emanating from the Italian scuzz/acid doom scene with heavily filtered sneery vocals delivered over a backdrop of deliciously thrumming heaviness, however, the main difference between what Zargenzein deliver and that which you might find gracing an album by Demonio or Witchsnake is that where those two Italian bands will often drench everything in distortion and fuzz Zargenzein are a a touch more restrained with their use of effects pedals, the band tending to bring a little more clarity to the table. Next up is "Pinnacler" here we find the quartet serving up ear-catching riffs and motifs over a thunderously swinging groove that is probably slightly more heavy rock than it is doom, the song also features some nicely traded off guitar soloing as well as another of those sneery heavily filtered vocal performances. You might expect a song titled "Attic Demon" to be heavily doomic and maybe a touch brutal, which in parts it is, but it also turns out to be quite bluesy and proto-metallic too, although you could hardly describe its accompanying vocals as sitting in either of those camps. For their final track Zargenzein ditch the sneered manic vocalising for a more traditional doomic delivery and twin that delivery with grooves that also sit in the traditional doom pocket, albeit regularly diverting into stoner and proto territories. It would be interesting to see if this more "traditional" direction will be something the band will to explore further on future recordings, they certainly have a gift for it.
Zargenzein deliver, with "Got Electricity?", all the filth and nastiness you could ask for in the medium of heavy music but manages to do so without becoming an unlistenable mess or just a wall of untamed noise, that's not to say that things don't get noisy, they do, but its a controlled noisiness, a structured noisiness, a beautifully thunderous and totally addictive noisiness.
Check it out ......
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