Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Video Review: ZEBULON KOSTED With The Best Of Intentions by Dave Wolff

With The Best Of Intentions
From their latest album, YHNRYHNC released June 6, 2017 by Hammerkrieg Productions
Video released October 2, 2017
Zebulon Kosted is a solo project founded by Rashid Abdel Ghafur back in 1999, when most black metal was moving from cultdom to mainstream acceptance. From 2000’s release of the debut full length IO to 2017’s release of You Have No Race You Have No Culture, Ghafur has supervised an endless stream of albums’ promotion and distribution. In that time he has also appeared on an even greater number of split releases with a long succession of bands. A complete list of full length and split releases is at Encyclopedia Metallum for your referral. Listening to the track With The Best Of Intentions from their new CD I can definitely attest it’s as caustic and trenchant as black metal comes. It’s pure cult without the ‘kvlt’ label that seems to be surfacing everywhere at present. My first impression: think of Burzum with twice the rawness, intensity and sense of cerebral torture and you have an inkling as to what you’re getting. The raw guitar sound, the unornamented lead guitar, the yawning bass, the concussive drums and alkaline vocals, mingled with an atmospheric section or two, all formulate a devastating, dissonant cacophony. The arrangements and the biting production fills you with illustrations of sealed crypts, dead breath and rusted torture devices. These mental pictures have a double meaning when you view the promotional video. This begins with a shot of trees and a grey sky suddenly turning to blue, with dark rain clouds. The shot fades into a panoramic view of a mountainous field with a cabin in the foreground, fading in turn to a new series of images including a bustling city, a factory spewing pollution, a super sized McDonald’s dinner (Corporate Deathburger anyone?), oil fires at sea and out of control wildfires. The sequence of images, if my perception of what Ghafur had in mind is accurate, makes a statement that corporations are causing more widespread destruction to the world than musicians ever could. Given the reputation metal bands have long been blanketed with, it’s a fitting statement to make about a self-interested society that doesn’t consider the long term effects of their greed, needs a scapegoat, and claims to have the best of intentions. The nature and animal shots added serve to remind you of a world being slowly overtaken, until there is eventually nothing left. -Dave Wolff


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