Over the past few years, Devil Master, Blank Spell, and Spiter have crystallised a new wave of black metal-inspired bands in the hardcore scene. But to call them simply black metal is selling them short. While they possess that genre’s banshee screeching and diminished chords, their punk-ified speed metal riffing and erratic structures reveal something foreign and gothic. Zorn show this better than any other.
…
…
A shadow is cast upon Zorn’s family by the so-called “Japanese punk-metal” sound that G.I.S.M. and Zouo defined in the 1980s. These groups’ Venom-throatedness, buzzing guitars, and driving drum beats were so raw that the line between them and early black metal was but a string. The foundations of Return to Castle Death, Zorn’s latest album, is a modern reinterpretation of this as it incorporates black metal’s later Norwegian developments.
Through their unconventional vocals, hardcore-focus and manic writing style, Zorn made a name for themselves as the most G.I.S.M.-leaning of their sect. What G.I.S.M. couldn’t predict, however were the elements Zorn takes from deathrock, the punk-indebted, American counterpart to goth. Zorn’s music is littered with the unorthodox chord voicings and sparse, flange-heavy guitar work blazed by Christian Death, Burning Image or Altar de Fey. Hardcore, goth, and black metal have long been intertwining, back to Celtic Frost’s love of Christian Death and Discharge or Mayhem’s Amebix and Dead Can Dance obsessions, but the flanger was overwhelmingly dismissed. Zorn even have a fascinating tendency to pluck characteristically black metal chords in ways that make them more closely resemble those of mainline British goth.
Zorn feature Cape of Bats live guitarist Eric Teofilak on vocals, a band who, a decade and a half ago, forged this same fusion. Following their hiatus in 2015, they became a phenomenon in their hometown of Philadelphia, in part through guitarist Francis Kano’s labels Grim Wind Records and Bat Magick Productions. If Cape of Bats and Haunter’s split album from last year is anything to go by, it seems to be called “black magick metal”.
Teofilak has the erratic annunciation and character voices of G.I.S.M.’s Shigehisa Yokoyama but incorporates them into more conventional black metal high-scream techniques. At times he even pushes his voice past ordinary false cord tonality into something based in his falsetto. However, when compared to Zorn’s self-titled, Return to Castle Death tunes down many of their manic qualities. Its song structures and riffs are certainly more predictable, even if that isn’t saying much when put against other bands. We’re still treated to a few maniacal laughs and screams, even gurgling on “Black Dog March”, but they’re less common, and the flanger is less present. Regardless, the organ on closer “Guest of the Mad Prince” is an unexpected treat.
Zorn’s lead guitars are less menacing than would be expected by the genres they take from. There is simply a level of fun that its parents don’t share. Certainly, Zorn are dark, but perhaps “spooky” is a better description. With the style’s sound and tongue-in-cheek black metal aesthetic spreading to Texas with Haunter and Chile with Sign of Evil, it becomes increasingly obvious that none of these bands are straight-faced. Return to Castle Death‘s artwork presents the band alongside the robed horde of monks that carry Teofilak on stage in a coffin each night. Many carry a Kalashnikov, a callback to the bayoneted demon from their self-titled sleeve.
The album also features occasional callbacks to post-G.I.S.M. hardcore developments. This is particularly prevalent through grooving mosh parts, such as at the end of “Return to the Castle” or the solo of SansAmp bass tone on “Curse of the Black Witch.” While production is cleaner and instruments are more distinguishable, the self-titled’s raw, cavernous mix played up their rabid qualities in a way Return to Castle Death only grazes.
To call Return to Castle Death formulaic would be a bare-faced lie, but compared to their previous efforts, it may as well be. Zorn remain consistent in their aim to create high-energy, deathrock-infused punk-black-metal. However, somewhere along the way, they lost focus of a quality that put them a head above the rest. The album proves Zorn have found their identity, but perhaps it is one so manic, even they can’t sustain it.
…
Return to Castle Death is available now via Sorry State Records.
