ZEAL AND ARDOR - Live In London

Ok, the Roadburn reviews for this year are done.

So now begins the time where I work myself through several related music releases.

Let's start with a groupg that wrote festival history with their sensational show in 2017:

ZEAL AND ARDOR - Live In London (CD) (2019)

The pace in which Manuel Gagneux' brainchild is growing remains astonishing. Back at Roadburn, only with one EP under their belly, they had developed enough material to fill a whole hour-long show.

One full album and not even two years later, after a success noone could have ever predicted for their daring mixture of black metal, gospel, blues and all kinds of further unlikely influences, Zeal & Ardor now released a live album with the track list of a seemingly long established act.

Some of the twenty-two tracks are intros / interludes, but still the amount of irresistable hits is staggering. And that includes not only the material of "Devil Is Fine" and "Stranger Fruit", but also again a handful of brand new tracks, which demonstrate, that the creative end of the line won't be reached any time soon here.

Zeal & Ardor live in Hamburg 2018

Just as the music so seemingly effortless blends genres and eras which appeared to be almost in contradiction to each other, the original lyrical concept of an alternative history, where North American slaves have rebelled against their masters in the name of Satan, has progressed to something much more universal. As already indicated by surface level details like lines delivered in Latin or even German, there is a message to be found that even transcends the strong focus on fiction as a comment on today's black experience.

Gagneux is probably too humble to ever admid that it's true, but I said it before and I will emphasize it again: Zeal & Ardor are - musically and lyrically - a force of rebellion and connection in a way that puts them in succession of the rightfully huge names System Of A Down and Rage Against the Machine.

So if you're thinking of writing the history of metal in the late 2010s, this is an essential release.

And beside its relevance - this shit is just amazefucking awesome!