Zyklon-B

Blood Must be Shed

The first of the great black metal side project that are halfway bitter humor, halfway  serious artistic pseudopods exploring new territory. 

Production: Mounted under a sheet of distortion and tonal echoing, this music preserves its  tone by blasting it inside out. 

Review: In the face of nihilism, some choose the course of invention and others choose rage.  Somewhere between the two is Zyklon-B, an obvious side-project of simple, almost only  sketched in songs in the black metal and grindcore tradition with a strong melodic noise  arrangement and production tendency. 

It is to little effect, however, for these songs are put together from obvious fragments of  scales and repeated basic melodic arrangements, causing the experienced listener to perceive  it as a cross between show tunes and death-march music sped up on tape. 

Indeed one of the distinctive characteristics of this music are the blasting pumpbeats  racing by under the kicking double-bass and wailing snare; above it a cymbal whips and a  slashing tempo upholds the high-hat, hit. With all guitar buried in the wash it neatly  integrates with the drums to produce a clipping pattern interrupting a sonorous but vapid  melody. 

Far from the worst of this genre this music nevertheless takes it nowhere and seems to be  less serious than raging, unrepentant energy; the culmination of this style of work is in  the final song Warfare, which adds a more sublime melodic sense and ripping guitar solos  under a keyboard wash to create a scary, brutal song. Like other songs, it is built from  abrupt changes and decorated with samples, but here the combination works in an altogether  more powerful aspect than the previous two songs. 

This is an EP of three songs, at eleven minutes of music, and as such may seal its fate as  the first of the truly outrageous side projects in black metal. Boasting Ihsahn on keyboards and Samoth on guitars from the band Emperor, this plays into the simple but effective  formula of the side project: sketches of inspiration laid out for amusement.

Tracklist:

1. Mental Orgasm (2:54)
2. Bloodsoil (2:25)
3. Warfare (5:35)
Length: 10:56 
 
*2004 Re-issue includes extra track: Total Warefare (Sea Serpent Remix) (5:57)