Coming from a predominantly Islamic country,
Zifir releases their second full length album,
Protest Against Humanity this year, also the first to feature drummer Nursuz after the first full length album, which was recorded with a drum machine. Being the first ever Turkish band that I encounter, it would certainly be interesting to see what this Turkish black metal band is able to offer to listeners.
Protest Against Humanity starts off with a
Fen-like introduction in the form of the instrumental Uncertain, a single acoustic guitar playing a sorrowful, yet classical tune, laying down the depressive mood for the album. However, with Shame,
Zifir displays their true form of expression - cold and bleak black metal. The spoken vocals that lies beneath the music at the beginning is haunting, almost like a mad-man's final pleas, and those towards the end of Shame sounds almost as if condemning the protagonist to a certain death.
The music on the album sound like a more epic version of atmospheric black metal bands such as the aforementioned
Fen, with the huge sounding guitar and drum tone, combined with the tortured vocals of (one of the two) Onur, at times bringing to mind
Dantalion's Sanguinist's style of vocals, adding a hint of desperation in the music and further emphasizing the depressive mood. The fuzzy tone of the guitars are also fully made use of, such as on Most Bitter Enemy, adding a touch of chaos in the moment. The mostly spoken interlude The
Poison from My Veins enforces the atmosphere of the music as it sends further chills down the listener's spine as ritualistic clean singing enters halfway through the song, but this is just a short break before the real madness continues with Worm Shaped, one of the fastest and the most intense song on the album. This increased intensity compared to the first half of the album carries on throughout, ending with the 8 minute epic Goat's Throne. On this track, the band once more slows down to the familiar epic style on the first half of the album, yet the band fully displays their ability, with a clear lead guitar driving the music along with the tortured shrieks of Onur.
Compared to the seemingly anti-religious lyrical contents on the band's debut album,
You Must Come with Us, it seems as if
Zifir has toned down on the anti-religious sentiments (with the exception of Goat's Throne, complete with chants of "Ave Satanae!" from the halfway mark onwards) and has instead shifted their focus on the hatred and on the end of humanity, evident from the title of the album as well as track titles such as The
Poison from My Veins.
Zifir's
Protest Against Humanity may be one of the first that I have heard out of Turkey, but compared to the brilliant releases of similar-sounding bands such as
Fen's full length release and split with
De Arma this year, this album certainly fails to shine as brightly as it should have. Nevertheless, a good representation of what bands out of Turkey are capable of.
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