God Among Insects - Zombienomicon
- Released: 2006
- Label: Threeman
- Rating:
Anyone who was around this site before its demise and rebirth is probably familiar with the name Lord K Philipson. If you haven’t been following his work as of late, you may be unaware that aside from his other band, The Project Hate, he has formed a death metal band with Caligula from Dark Funeral, Tobben from Vomitory, and Tomas of Sanctification. This is that band. Their first effort, World Wide Death, was mostly a tribute to old school death metal. Other websites (coughblabberpeniscough) ran it into the ground for being “too old school”, but it was a pretty damn good death metal album. It did have its share of problems – mainly a very low vocal mix. This actually wasn’t too bad, because it just made the record sound that much more raw, but could’ve been just that much more brutal with a higher mix.
In steps their second effort, Zombienomicon. The vocal mix problem has been corrected in this record, and it makes a hell of a lot of difference. Now, I’m not sure if this can be completely attributed to that change, but Caligula’s growls sound a HELL of a lot better here. I’m not sure if he just became more accustomed to deep growls instead of high-pitched screams, or if it’s just the mix, or both…but the vocals throughout the entire album are absolutely vicious. Many, many kudos to the man for his efforts here. My only beef comes during “They Came in Thousands”, I believe it is, where some of his vocals start leaning towards a later-era Glen Benton Deicide style, which annoy the fuck out of me. Other than that, they’re top-notch.
Surprisingly, this album is a completely different album than the first. Whereas the first was pretty much a tribute to genius of bands like Seance, this album seems to have the band finding its own identity. After some thought, I’m pretty glad that the music is going that route. More than one album of tribute to old-school would just get repetitive. The theme of this album has also ventured away from the Christian-hating and goes towards (you guessed it) the dead and death. It’s refreshing to see a band be able to change that many things and still retain the groove and brutality that this band brings to the table.
It’s astounding to see the ease at which the band can create music like this. They’ve obviously got the death metal formula down – short songs with enough variation to not be repetitive, and ten tracks so it’s easy to go through again and pick up the things you missed the first time. It took several listens for World Wide Death to grow on me, and it’s the same here. I didn’t like the album on my first listen. After my second and third, it didn’t leave my player for a week. “Weaklings” is by far the best album on the track. It was the first track to have me pause and check the name of it so I could include it in this review. After that came “The Bashing of Skulls”, the closing track, which is slightly less good than “Weaklings” but is still a great closing track. Other notables include “Fucked by the Dead” and “Toth’Tauun”, which includes my favorite combination of slow, groovy riffing laid over a fast double bass beat.
Speaking of the instruments, you’ll get no less than you would expect of these respective masters of their domain. K may not be able to play a solo worth a shit, but by Satan can he write a fucking riff. He, Tobben, and Tomas make a great team, coming up with some of the most groovy sounds you’ll hear from a death metal album. If you’ve ever heard either Vomitory or Sanctification you know what to expect from the bass and drums. Tobben reaffirms himself as one of my favorites, if not my favorite Swedish death metal drummer. Not to leave Tomas out, the low end of this album complements K’s guitar (which might as well BE a bass, considering how fucking thick his strings are, haha) pretty well. Lastly, as I’ve mentioned before, Caligula delivers one of his best performances here. His low vocals were pretty fitting for the first albums, but the devastating growls he bellows on Zombienomicon are simply phenomenal.
After all this knob-slobbing, I still have a gripe – that being that with ten songs, a couple of them still feel like filler. After “F(Wh)oreplay”, my attention wanders off until “Toth’Tauun”, and then waivers again after that until “Fucked by the Dead”. Not that these other songs suck, but they just don’t compare to the other stellar tracks on the record. This really wasn’t the case on the first album. My opinion will likely change as the number of listens increases, but I did expect a little more from this record after hearing songs like “Chainsawed Christians” and “Purified in Carnage” on the first album.
Despite that, I am extremely satisfied with this album and I am pretty anxious to hear what’s in store for the third record. I think sticking with this current theme (or even maybe coming up with an all new one for the next album) would be best for the band, but of course that all lies with K and the rest of the band. Bands have tried for years to put out stuff like this and failed, and yet these guys do it year after year. Death metal fans, pick up this album immediately.
Farlus | 08/12/2006