The Disciples Of Zoldon
Blackened Theological Tome
6.1
Synopsis:
I’ve got to give New Zealand’s Luke Brimblecombe some credit as this is his third album of self released death metal on which he plays all instruments and writes all the songs. That being said, this third effort does sound like a one man death metal project.
Review:
The obvious drawback to this release is the programmed drums and clinical nature of the instruments, especially when the material and themes is a more organic, Lovecraft-ish, cavernous tone, but in the big picture of things The Berzerker sounding drums don’t distract from the technical, but often scattershot song writing.
Brimblecombe, is if anything ambitious. His favored style of chaotic, atonal death metal could be compared to the like of Morbid Angel, Mithras, Nile or Immolation and his lyrics are equally (tongue in cheek?) esoteric and otherwordly with odd injections of programming and keyboard ambience, but ultimately its not terribly coherent or memorable. Brimblecombe’s vocals are also a bit like the drums in that they are rather robotic and sterile, but the end result at least has some merit, unlike a lot of self released one man projects.
The ten tracks bearing names like “He Breaks His Fast Upon A Feast Of Falsehood”, “Reverence Unto He Who is the Vehement One” and “That Megalith Whose Shadow Is Cast Beyond Time Itself” all seem to be singing the praises of this Zoldon character (apparently the fictional God of heavy metal) in a form of competent but not quite there yet technical and cosmically flocked death metal that’s neither terrible but is promising, though not obviously not quite ready for label interest. The guy can play and seems to have a plethora of ideas and riffs swirling in his head (listen to the standout “In the Wake of Chariots”), but I’m not sure if he’s mucking about and poking fun at extreme metal, or trying to deliver a serious effort. Either way, he can play, but I imagine he would have far more success plying his skill in a full band (which I gather TDOZ once was), where his ideas and skill could be channeled.
With all ten tracks freely available to download from the band's site, I’d recommend you check this out and see for yourself, as I seem to be alternating between, “Hmmm, this has some real potential” to “Meh, I see why he is self releasing stuff”.
