Those who do follow the story of the Synthetic King and the Human Emperor: here is a next chapter within this exciting story. After the belief, or hope, to choose Utryn as his suitable successor, at a period of relative quietness and peace, Utryn suddenly shows up at the Emperor celestial palace. Both rulers discuss a future series of events that might turn the balance of power towards one of both. Conditions are discussed and soon battles and combats will be organized. What will be the outcome. Will Utryn, the Zealous Killer, survive and become the Vrozlydian Emperor’s successor? Will there be treason, perfidy, delusion, mirage, dissimulation, deception?
Zealous Killer is the next chapter that characterizes the quasi-eternal battle within a post-planetary Universe of semi-humanoid, insectoid / reptilian and robotic life-forms. Once again, it was totally created and performed by the human (I think) Rachid Abdel Gafur, who wrote all material and performed all voices and instruments. Everything got recorded at the Zond Studio (Michigan, not Montana) during Spring and Summer 2024. The stunning, enormously characteristic artwork was done by Rachid once more, with assistance of Centipede Abyss alumnus Pan Merakli (Act Of Entropy, Zvylpwkua, Ar’lyxkq’wr) for graphic design and layout, and Ben Schnitz (Lone Sentinel, Frostrune, Hammer & Flail Recordings) (additional artwork, as well as production).
The result is a one-track experience, yet a lengthy adventure (about forty minutes) divided into an amalgam of cohesive yet internally disturbing fragments. Those trusted with former Zebulon Kosted material, or stuff released under monikers like Obsidian Mirror, Themis, Utryn or Vrozlyd (amongst others) will comprehend that Zealous Killer will not be an easy-listening album (at all). It took me several listens too, before I had the courage to write down my thoughts once again, for each listen sort of reveals new details that suddenly seem to appear out of the black, or the blue. …or ‘out of thin air’, like how the physically shaped king suddenly manifested himself inside the imperial halls, like a fleshly-plasmatic and touchable-incarnated hologram-like entity.
Every couple of minutes, or even seconds, the sonic content seems to interchange, to morph and dismorph, into new orbits of aural artistry. That is why I will dissect these 38:40 minutes more or less step by step. It does open very ‘primal’, like some rehearsal recording session in a moisty basement: unpolished strings and rageful drums jamming around. …tasteful… Seriously, it’s like an uncompromising Black Metal session recorded live in a dungeon where sadistic practices take place. Hehe… After half a minute or so, clean voices join, little evoking and harmonious, with a warm timbre. Somewhat later, also astral-laden synths join, both atmospheric and spacy, with sort of an explosion going over to another schizoid piece. For some reason, it reminds me of Vulcanodon Phazer (for what it's worth), or side-project Themis (yet without the blackened screams), with another spacy intermezzo introducing a partly-acoustic fragment (we’re just at nearly three minutes).
And so I can go on. At four minutes, a short Space Ambient excerpt arrives, immediately followed by another excellently distasteful outburst of blackened energy. Faster riffs, eruptive drum patterns, grooving bass-lines, mesmeric solos, and conjuring voices interplay with elements from Psybient and Space Drone, injected with esoteric, horrific, exotic and archaic details. Enjoy the unusual melodies at 9:30, with those weird synths, cheesy basses and jazzy cymbals, before evolving into another section of keyboard-driven weirdness (which does refer to Rachid’s more Ambient-oriented projects like Utryn or Vrozlyd). Twelve minutes marks the start of a dreamy bass-led piece, soon added by raw six-stringed guitars, and creating an atmosphere of mysticism. Things grow into larger proportions, painting a delusion-like picture of immeasurable prominence. Enter deep narrative voices at 15:20, surrounded by gloomy keyboard lines, followed by brave acoustic guitar lines, and expanding with several layers of guitar- and synth-based structures. At seventeen minutes, one might drown in a cosmic sea of awe and hypnosis. The synths that do follow immediately (eventually also a piano-sounding harmony) create a mirror of metaphoric and, at the same time, mysterious elegance (even ‘beautiful’ in nature) before another Stoner particle continues. At least for a while, because at 19:52 everything explodes in an outburst of Noise, like an exploding star getting swallowed by a black hole. And so on…
And so on…
And so on…
Spacy and psychoid parts, Desert Rock / Stoner-like pieces, doomed fragments versus blasting ones, and sometimes a mixture of several of these… At 27:29 things turn into a transcendental, almost ceremonial story (long-stretched and semi-meditative chants, joined by the clean voice), but one minute later, the rough guitars and pushing percussions return once again. The last ten minutes get even deeper, farther, higher, with more Kosmische, Ambient, Progressive, Electronic and Blackened (not the vocals, not one time on this album) dramatism. The real grande finale starts at about 35:30 and lacks any Rock or Metal injection. Different approaches of Dark and Space Ambient, Horror Electronica, even Dungeon Synth and Gothic, get edified, with whispered and mechanoid voices, hallucinogenic loops (listen to the final fragment) and hints of (cult) horror movies.
Oh my dearest self, this album is such unique yet elusive and indefinable magnum opus, leaving me saturated and empty at once, satisfied yet still craving, lucid yet perplexed, both eloquent and speechless. It’s an experience of impregnable grotesquery (which is not meant as a counterfeited piece of theatrical absurdity [though an absurd surrealism surely surrounds this work, haha]). Humbly I bow my head, wishing that my pill of paracetamol will work soon…
https://zebulonkosted.bandcamp.com/album/zealous-killer
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/zebulon-kosted
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/act-entropy-zebulon-kosted
https://www.concreteweb.be/reviews/utryn