Flesh Assimilation

I wrote about one of Zom’s EPs at the start of this year, and I think I can still hear the last few reverberations of my last couple of sentences echoing through the cosmic void of (monumentally undeserved) indifference the review generated. Oh well- Zom are a great band, who belong in the lives of anyone interested in vicious old-school death-thrash. Early Death and Possessed, alongside the more violent realms of thrash on either side of the Atlantic- Dark Angel or Destruction. These are hardly atypical influences but they paid most wondrous homage on Flesh Assimilation.

This is their first proper album, and while stylistically it’s basically the same as their first couple of releases, it’s probably a notch more impressive. One reason for this is that the one thing I didn’t like about them before was the fact that their songs could be formulaic. Blisteringly fast extreme metal gives way to grimy slow groove, then back again. There’s nothing wrong with this but it was a template they used too much in my opinion. Here, though, songs are more focused and switch around less, which I like. Zom in top gear can reach such brutal tempos that the whole becomes a roar of gushing metallic noise, and those tracks like Tombs of the Void, Illbeings Unseen, Conquest, and so on, which alternate between fourth and fifth rather than periodically slamming on the handbrake, are completely laden with exhilarating hooks. The production is obviously very raw and the drumming, in particular, seems to explode across the sound and through the speakers, giving Flesh Assimilation a truly vicious feel.

The tracks which make the most use of slower tempos do so brilliantly- for example Gates to Beyond or the title track, both of which have spiteful grooves that could fit on a Triptykon album. The latter accelerates hair-raisingly into a second half which is some of the most intense extreme metal I have heard this year. The whole album, as well, is drenched in creepy sound effects- people screaming, and all that. Marvellous!