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Zebras - The City Of The Sun
Released by: Secret Records
Released on: July 14th, 2015.
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Formed in 2007, Wisconsin's Zebras - made up of Vincent Presley (the drummer for Those Poor Bastards) on guitars and vocals, Shane Hochstetler on drums and Lacey Smith on analog synths - have now released their second full length album with The City Of The Sun. They previously released some demos on Bandcamp in 2014 that made their way onto this album, but they sound a little more polished and finished here. If their early stuff showed a big Dead Kennedys influence, this second release brings the band into decidedly heavier territory.
The opening track, Hollow Earth, features Presley's vocals up front in the mix and presented with an insane amount of anger and aggression, particularly towards the end of the track. It's got a sort of Ministry inspired beat to it, those guitars grinding along with the percussion, and while it's not an industrial track per se, it's pretty intense and a great way to start things off. The Turning Of The Bones picks up where the first track left off, they blend into one another pretty seamlessly and if you liked that opener, you'll dig this too.
My Apocalypse continues the insanity and the intensity of what came before it, just a fast, pounding, heavy-rhythmic track that's got some slick production to it ensuring that you can hear everything clearly, but not at the cost of the band's raw sound. The Bell has a bit more of a traditional metal sound to it with its longer instrumental opening. When the vocals kick in there's that anger that's been inherent in everything on the record up to this point but things are a bit slowed down, maybe a little more coherent and the synths play a bigger part here.
Baalbek marks the half way point, and it's completely unhinged. It's pounding, it has a very definite and deliberate groove to it, but the vocals go off with some serious unpredictability. The Garden is fast, very fast, speed metal fast. It's a blistering track and at just over two minutes the shortest track on the record - just a full speed ahead blast of fury. Levitation slows things down but only a hair. It's got a bit of a stoner rock sound to it to start, and there's a break down here that's interesting but listen to Presley loose his shit here - it's something else.
Bringing us into the home stretch, Solomon is more seriously intense, angry stuff. Lyrically, like everything on this record, it's pretty dark, but the riffs on this track are especially thick and crushing. Vitrified is all over the place, it's the most erratic track on the record and again the synths play a big part in the 'wholeness' of the sound, giving it a slightly darker, gothic, more ambient sound without taking it away from the heaviness that this album has got going for it. Last but not least, Filled With Fire has the most obvious punk influence to it out of what's been compiled on the record, but it's still got a metal/crossover sound to it. The drums really kill it on this last track, while Presley once again unleashes some seriously insane vocals. All in all, The City Of The Sun is a pretty fantastic album. If you're going into this for the Those Poor Bastards connection (that's what got me) this is about as far from their gothic country sound as you're going to get but fans of darker punk-infused metal/crossover should appreciate this. It's ten tracks of unrestrained vocal insanity overtop of some seriously heavy, slick and tight playing. Great stuff.
Stream the title track here!
