A band's country of origin, and in particular the town or city they hail from can give you a misleading or just plain false impression of what a band sounds like before you actually give them a listen for the first time. In the case of Umea, Sweden quartet Zonaria, they sound nothing like their hometown heroes Meshuggah and while sharing a reasonable amount of common ground musically with the likes of Dark Tranquillity or Amon Amarth, Zonaria have their roots planted much more firmly in melodic Black Metal territory than melodic Death Metal.
On their second album, Zonaria sound like if a mid-late period Dimmu Borgir ('At War With The Inferior') and Amon Amarth ('From The Abysmal Womb') had a party and Arcturus (minus the clean vocal lines and off-beat lyrics- see 'Praise The Eradication', 'Contra Mundum' as evidence) and Darkane showed up to have a few drinks as well. Despite the dodgy band name (mind you, just about anything would be an improvement over their original name, the horribly confusing Seal Precious), 'The Cancer Empire' is a more than respectable record. It lacks a little imagination in the songwriting department, but for fans of melodic Black Metal with many symphonic flourishes and melodic Death Metal overtones, this album will hit the spot.
While not possessing quite enough variety (and some of the synth lines sound remarkably similar to one another), on this album Zonaria do far more right than wrong. Their attempts to fuse aggression, atmosphere and melody are nothing new, but a song like opener 'Slaughter Is Passion' illustrates nearly all of their strengths in a little more than four minutes. It showcases the ideal balance of heaviness, intensity, melody-drenched guitars, slower and more measured passages and frantic, yet diverse riffing. It's both fast and pissed off and slow and reflective, and the nine tracks after it tend to follow a similar pattern, with varying (but mostly positive) results. The tasty dual harmonies of 'Humanity Vs Sanity' are a highlight, as is the ominous-sounding intro and strong melodies of 'The Icon And The Faceless' or the furious blasting of 'Damnation Dressed In Flesh'.
In a no-brainer move for a band with a strong focus on melody, they've also enlisted the production services of Fredrik Nordstrom, who gives the album a slick, at times cold and mechanical feel that works quite well with the material. No, it doesn't sound like a shitty third rate demo ala your more "grim" Black Metal outfits but it retains enough rawness and intensity to prevent it from sounding over-produced or too clean. It might not be "kvlt" enough for some but hey, those kinds of folks will always find something to bitch about on message boards. The only major beef I have with the production is that there are too many effects used on the vocals, which makes some passages sound a tad lifeless. While far from revolutionary, 'The Cancer Empire' is more than capably executed melodic Extreme Metal that will find itself an audience. These guys are still very young too, so there's plenty of time for them to develop into the great band they are obviously capable of being.
- Spiritech
(See reviewer's scoring method)
