February 5, 2023

1,000,001 CDs 20: Zeal & Ardor, Manuel Gagneux & Lexi

~    
Zeal & Ardor CD front cover 
Artwork ~ Noé Herrmann 
Illustration ~ Nico Charon 
photo of front cover by Styrous®


My wonderful Lexi of Titanic fame has done it again! Her Christmas present to me was a really kool CD by a heavy metal group I had never heard before, Zeal & Ardor.       
         
Formed in 2013, Zeal & Ardor is a Swiss avant-garde metal band started and led by Manuel Gagneux, a Swiss-American musician who had previously created a chamber pop project called Birdmask. The group mixes sounds of African-American spirituals and other black music forms with black metal.          
 
 

Manuel Gagneux 
photo by Derek Bremner
 
 
The son of a white Swiss biologist who played percussion in Cuba and a black American jazz singer, he did not fit in. Not really Swiss, not really a black kid, he wrestled with the feeling through his primary school years. Perhaps it’s what is heard now in his music. He says he still doesn’t really know where it came from – just that it was there.     

Initially a solo project, the band signed with MVKA records in 2016 and expanded to a full lineup, with Gagneux on vocals and guitar, backing vocalists Denis Wagner and Marc Obrist, guitarist Tiziano Volante, bassist Mia Rafaela Dieu, and drummer Marco Von Allmen. The project started in New York City, but is now based in Basel, Switzerland.     

Hunkering down in the basement of the local bar he used to co-own (“a squat-y, punky bar, full of tags and awful imagery, beer’s cheap”) he worked on songs, including some he’d previously written for Eric Garner, a black man killed in Staten Island after police put him in a chokehold in 2014.    


Manuel Gagneux 
photo by Matthias Willi


Gagneux posted his Birdmask music to 4chan, he said, "to get feedback because they're brutally honest and don't give a shit about you." He would ask users for two musical genres to combine and create a song in half an hour, as an experiment to expand his creativity. One of these users suggested that he fuse "black metal", while another suggested "nigger music"; in response, he started Zeal & Ardor, which features elements of both black metal and slave songs.       
 
Billboard Magazine:
"If the Zeal & Ardor combination of Scandinavian black metal and black American slave spirituals seems contrived, that’s because it is — or at least, it was."          

Manuel Gagneux - 2022
photo by Nat Wood

 
I pretty much like all the songs on the album but the ones in particular that have grabbed me are Bow, Golden Liar, Feed The Machine, Death to the Holy, Church Burns and Hold Your Head Low


 Zeal & Ardor ~ Zeal & Ardor
CD open front cover 
Artwork ~ Noé Herrmann 
Illustration ~ Nico Charon 
photo of front cover by Styrous®
  

Bow is the seventh cut on the CD but I like using it as the opening shot; it gives you a taste for what comes after. It is a very slow number with a very heavy beat; when I say heavy, I mean HEAVY! It has a great chorus back up which makes it SO rhythm 'n blues, with a bite!         
 
        
 Zeal & Ardor ~ Zeal & Ardor
CD & interior cover 
Artwork ~ Noé Herrmann 
Illustration ~ Nico Charon 
photo of front cover by Styrous®
 
 
Golden Liar is mostly a guitar duet, a couple of male vocals, great understated percussion with a heavy beat, tons of sonic effects, a quiet chorus and good lyrics. And it is sensational! It's the fifth cut on the CD and I highly recommend listening to it second. I feel it is a wonderfully delicate nuance of a determined-to-get-there sound. It is VERY slow and its grandly pounding bass drum tugs you along on its journey to wherever it is going.        

 
 Zeal & Ardor ~ Zeal & Ardor
CD & interior cover detail
Artwork ~ Noé Herrmann 
Illustration ~ Nico Charon 
detail photo by Styrous®
 
 
Feed The Machine is another slow song with a driving beat and a treatment Marilyn Manson would have given his eye teeth for. It is a blend of mid-seventies, pre-disco, hip-grinding soul and way out there metal. It's a terrific song to dance, if not, at least move to.         
     
 Zeal & Ardor ~ Zeal & Ardor
interior cover
photo by Styrous®
 
 
Hold Your Head Low also like the above mentioned, Bow, is another very slow song with a great male chorus that definitely puts it in the R 'n B, mode; and terrific guitar work during the quiet breaks; in spots it drives right through your head like a rusty nail. It's a really great song with interesting lyrics.        

Although it is also a moderately slow song, Death To the Holy is pure dynamite! With great piano work, it is a conglomeration of soul, rap and who knows WHAT! The video for this song on YouTube (link below) cautions against subject.    

Church Burns begins like a blues song but breaks out into metal then back and forth. Really beautiful vocal and guitar in the breaks.           
 
 
Zeal & Ardor ~ Zeal & Ardor
CD cradle
photo by Styrous®
 
 
It seems most of the songs I've talked about have been moderately slow ones but Headbangers have not been left out. Gotterdammerung, J-M-B and Run quite nicely fill that niche.          
 
Gotterdammerung is VERY heavy metal, no doubt about it. It just starts FULL steam; no messin' 'round, no intro build up,
 
Run does just THAT! It is a humdinger with furiously fast guitars followed by equally fast tom-toms. There is a video for the song on YouTube (link below), however, it is very frenetic and has a warning at the beginning that warns one of possible seizures. Not sure if that is just marketing hype.   
 
The opening and closing songs are VERY short, really interesting and deserving of closer look and listening.           


 Zeal & Ardor ~ Zeal & Ardor
back cover
photo by Styrous® 


           
Tracklist:

        Solve   
1 Zeal & Ardor - 1:58
2 Run - 3:17
3 Death to the Holy - 3:08
4 Emersion - 3:35
5 Golden Liar - 3:44
6 Erase - 4:02
7 Bow - 2:14

        Coagula   
8 Feed The Machine - 2:39
9 I Caught You - 4:07
10 Church Burns    3:04
11 Gotterdammerung - 3:03
12 Hold Your Head Low - 4:43
13 J-M-B - 1:54
14 A-H-I-L - 2:36

Companies, etc.

    Phonographic Copyright ℗ – Redacted GmbH
    Copyright © – Redacted GmbH
    Licensed To – Mvka
    Published By – Chester Music
    Manufactured By – SixtySix Productions
    Manufactured By – www.sixtysixproductions.co.uk
    Manufactured By – Optimal Media GmbH – AL64008
    Recorded At – Hutch Sounds
    Mixed At – Graphic Nature Audio
    Mastered At – Graphic Nature Audio

Credits:

    Artwork – Noé Herrmann, Zeal & Ardor*
    Composed By – Manuel Gagneux
    Drums, Performer, Photography By – Marco von Allmen
    Illustration – Nico Charon
    Mixed By, Mastered By – Will Putney
    Recorded By – Manuel Gagneux, Marc Obrist

Notes:

Comes in 6 panel Digipak.

Recorded at Hutch Sounds.
Mixed and mastered at Graphic Nature Audio.
Special thanks to Schammasch.

© & ℗ 2021 & 2022 Redacted GmbH under exclusive license to MKVA.
All rights reserved.

Made in Germany

Barcode and Other Identifiers

    Barcode: 190296780851
    Label Code: LC 49967
    Matrix / Runout: SixtySix66 www.sixtysixproductions.co.uk AL64008-01 manufactured by optimal media GmbH
    Mastering SID Code: IFPI L578
 
Zeal & Ardor* – Zeal & Ardor
Label:    Mvka – MVLP1049
Format:    CD, Album
Country: Worldwide
Released: Feb 11, 2022
Genre:    Rock
Style:    Black Metal, Soul
          
 
 
          
Viewfinder links:        
         
Lexi       
Marilyn Manson        
Titanic LaserDisc        
Zeal & Ardor lyrics            
      
Net links:        
         
Nico Charon           
Noé Herrmann       
Void Report ~ Deafheaven, Baroness, Zeal & Ardor (review) 
      
YouTube links:         

Bow           
Church Burns          
Death to the Holy (video)           
Emersion         
Erase         
Feed The Machine        
Golden Liar         
Gotterdammerung         
Hold Your Head Low            
I Caught You        
J-M-B   
Run (video)           
Zeal & Ardor (opening song)          
A-H-I-L (closing song)  
         
         

Once again, thanks, Lexi!


         
Styrous® ~ Sunday, February 5, 2023     
    








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