Zyklon - Disintegrate (2006)

Perhaps the upwards velocity of the band had been curbed by the year 2006. With two unrelenting hybrids, generally well received slabs of modernist black/death metal attack beneath their belts, what more could the band really offer us? Would they simply turn back towards their mainstays and forget all about this project, or was there something else in the time streams planned for the Zyklon fan...it turns out this was the case, and keeping the same lineup and style intact from the sophomore Aeon, the Norwegian super group would once more emerge from their caverns of creation to try and bludgeon us upside the head once more.

Disintegrate is an anomaly to me, because for all purposes, its contents have been very carefully measured and committed to the studio with a lot of superior elements to the past. These are arguably the band's busiest compositions, and some will say their best recorded (though a case might be made for World ov Worm's less bassy scenario or Aeon's turbulent depths). I can't say I disagree, as this is the brightest, in your face record of Zyklon's career. Yet, for all its strengths, I found Disintegrate to be remarkably.. forgettable in the long run. Almost every song on this album contains 1-2 riffs of value and then a bunch of throwaway matter that feels like a retread of prior songs, which I can definitely live without.

For example, take "Vile Ritual", which has quite a lot of impact and a few excellent rhythms of hyper thrashing/death metal woven throughout, before it lapses into less interesting patterns and ultimately a half-assed thrash breakdown which brings nothing to the table until the solo, which is itself pretty lamentable. "Wrenched" opens with huge, evil old school death rhythm lent atmosphere by Tony's vocals, and proceeds through a decent, thick industrial sheen, but then eventually lags off into some dull chug that seems like a slightly less coherent version of "Core Solution" off the second album. Those are actually two of the better songs...because then you've got fare like "Vulture" or the Gorguts-like mesh of "A Cold Grave" which I wouldn't remember if you shot me with it.

The lyrics here are actually decent, but when you take into consideration all these simplified song titles like "Underdog", "Vulture", and "Skinned and Endangered", this album feels like its often some soulless attempt at creating a more extreme alternative to Fear Factory, with less of the industrial influence. Gone are such inspirational titles as "Hammer Revelation" or "No Name Above the Names", and one soon casts the impression that this album was far harder on the band's limbs than their imaginations. At the same time, it's not really something I would dub 'poorly written', just lacking any durable entertainment value. Surely, the performances are intense, especially in the drumming and shred work, but I can't recall a single moment where real excitement or surprise at some blazing, excellent riff transpired within me.

I think the large share of my disappointment comes with the missed opportunities here. For all intensive purposes, Zyklon could have become this magnificent beast which merged together the black/death metal and industrial-electronic output to something much more important and widely spread throughout the realm, and yet they've gone down the route of a straight death metal act with only a touch of the black remaining, and a few samples to boot. Perhaps this album's title was indicative of the band's own mental state with the project, because after its release the band would indeed fold, first delegated to a prolonged hiatus and more recently with the official notice via Samoth.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10] (my request is inconclusive)

http://www.zyklontribe.com/

Zyklon - Aeon (2003)

As predicted, Zyklon's debut World ov Worms would create quite a current in the extreme metal fandom of both Europe and the United States. The attention addled fans were suckers for the sort of precision aggression and technicality this band were spitting forth, and the band were able to make some headway live. The next order of business would be to create a worthwhile follow-up, the dreaded sophomore effort, and to fill in their ranks with a permanent solution to the vocals, as well as relieve the other band members of having to play the bass. Keeping the project in the family, and killing two birds with one stone, they enlisted Tony Ingebrigsten, aka 'Sechtdamon', Destructhor's mate from Myrkskog, and also of Odium, to manage the growling AND the four strings.

He does both exceptionally well, and his black/death growls seem a pretty natural fit for this band, perhaps a little bit better than Vidar Jensen's work on the first album, and I like the way he incorporates melody into the gutturals, adding another dimension entirely to the blitz of Bård Eithun's cataclysmic lyrical poetry. I also noticed a larger, welcome boost to the bass on this record which gives it more of a depth than World ov Worms, and this is really the only difference, because this is a similar combination of the death and black metal aesthetics of the debut, with brief infusions of industrial or electronic music to maintain its futurist perspective.

The album starts off like the vortex gracing its cover, with the hurricane force attack of "Psyklon Aeon", part Deicide or Morbid Angel but with some amazing leads woven through out and hints of just enough melody to make this more extreme than some mindless bludgeoning. "Core Solution" is a wise follow-up, as its writhing chugs and bleak backing melody create an immediate foundation for a concert crowd to explode, and coming after the relentless opening track here, its a good change of pace. "Subtle Manipulation" seems to throw away various opportunities, teasing with a few seconds of excellent riffing and then erupting into a pretty stock Norse black metal sequence, but "Two Thousand Years" brings it back with a complex crawl, a brooding and often droning overture of measured thunder which reminds me of the writing for the past two Morbid Angel albums.

Picture only what you're worth, in all your incompleteness
Condemnation could only be revealed through liberation
Apocalyptic as in clear-cut context
No more words needed, final result is man
As he shall ever be; striving, acting and suffering

Unfortunately, the latter half of the album rarely re-invigorates the excitement brought on by the opening moments of the album. We are instead battered with half-realized fare like "No Name Above the Names" with its pretty dull progression that we feel we've already heard. "The Prophetic Method" and "Electric Current" are all too quickly forgotten. Exceptions would be "Specimen Eruption", which at least begins with a pretty interesting, psychotic industrial thrash flow before diverging into the slower mosh segments with endless double bass formations, or the finale "An Eclectic Manner", which is probably the most introspective, morose piece on the entire album, with some pretty amazing moments in the verse and bridge that really delve into the physical and psychological wasteland cycle the band creates through its aesthetic.

There are certainly elements here I appreciated more than the debut, but the overall songwriting seems somewhat lessened. The lyrics are passable, but simply not as good as those found on World ov Worms. Love the bass tones of this album, and really enjoy Sechtdamon's performance, but it suffers the same 'half-on, half-off' feel I felt about its predecessor, with a number of inspirational tracks counteracted by 'phoned in' material that feels like a pre-tread battlefield. Fortunately the band were keeping themselves alive through some touring and an increasing spike of popularity, because content-wise, this is not quite greatness at play.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10] (detachment of continuity)

http://www.zyklontribe.com/

Zyklon - World ov Worms (2001)

Why'd they drop the 'B', and when did Marilyn Manson's destitute cousin begin bathing in maggots, anyway? These were my thoughts after purchasing the debut of Zyklon, one of Norway's first super black metal super groups to truly depart on their own, stirring up a wealth of international buzz. With a core of Samoth (Emperor), Trym (Emperor, Enslaved, Tartaros) and Destructhor (1349, Myrkskog), and Daemon Vidar of Limbonic Art on vocals, it was not difficult to envision the sounds that might erupt from this debut: harsh, fast-paced black metal ala Myrkskog or Emperor with Samoth's sweeping and probably some modern or progressive edge to the writing.

World ov Worms in fact all of these things, and more, as it settles nicely between the genres of extreme, melodic black and death metal, putting a cold, industrial sheen on the proceedings that has little to do with pulsing beats of machinery, but everything to do with the destructive, post-apocalyptic aesthetics captured through the relentless sound. There is no real relation to Samoth's former side project Zyklon-B except in name alone, if anything this is a precision mesh of Morbid Angel and Myrkskog, bringing the bear much of the same, cataclysmic payload as the latter's Deathmachine, with a few segues of spoken, male/female vocals courtesy of Trickster G of Ulver and Persephone.

The opening track, wonderfully titled "Hammer Revelation" serves as a connect-the-dots lesson in everything Zyklon will be using to crush your ears. Blasting, warlike drums courtesy of one of the most machine-like human beings in the extreme metal camp, Morbid Angel style guitars that crash into the eerie minor chord streams typical of Norse black metal, mostly black metal vocals, and some solid sweeping patterns, leads and a little more melody than one might have expected. "Deduced to Overkill" is about half as long, blasting chaos with a better mix of the black and death growls. 'The death ritual begins...' is the sample which anoints the bludgeoning flattery of "Chaos Deathcult", one of the better songs on this album, and by this point you are convinced that, similar to Destructhor's other entity Myrkskog, this is not a band all that interested in giving the listener a chance to breathe.

"Storm Detonation" splatters across the scene with a very mechanical, industrial thrash metal feel to it, and this is yet again another one of the album's finest, with a monolithic architecture created through the rampant melodic evils that stretch between the molten fires of creation. "Zycloned" includes a pure, industrial metal breakdown which took me quite by surprise, in fact I found myself wishing they had included more parts like this on the album overall. But with "Terrordrome", the band is back in the fast lane, thankfully with some superior riffing to several of the other tracks, and this is perhaps one of the band's more iconic career songs. "Worm World" is rather forgettable, apart from the "Chapel of Ghouls"-like breakdown in the bridge with some creepy keyboards, and the closer "Transcendental War: Battle Between Gods" is notable for some strong riffing patterns, and Trickster G joining the band with some soaring, guest cleans.

The mix of the album is pretty much perfect to convey its sinister diaries of Armageddon, though I felt like the bass took a backseat much of the time, which strangely does not affect the balance of aggressive speed and impressive guitar work. The use of samples is tasty, and the band is clever enough to sprinkle the compositions with enough colliding, shifting dynamics that one is held in furor throughout much of the 41 minute length, without the ballistic overkill that a record might suffer if it were simply about speed and execution, with no lyrical bent or ability to consume the listener in a conflagration of inspiration. Half of the tracks are excellent: "Storm Detonation", "Chaos Deathcult", "Terrordrome" and "Transcendental War", and the rest are good enough to fill in the blanks.

I imagine there were individuals who felt this band would leave both Emperor and Myrkskog in the dust, but it's really just a fusion of the infernal energies that drove both acts, and one can surmise that it offered just enough 'out of reach' of the members' main bands that it had to occur to curtail some measure of ambition. Considering the popularity of the more unforgiving, technical ends of death or black metal, especially here in the States, this sort of project was surely in demand, so Samoth and crew were positioned to explode.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10] (still no reason to inhale the dirt)

http://www.zyklontribe.com/