Manuel Gagneux has a lot on his mind, and our world needs to expand to fit his opinions. As if the first three Zeal & Ardor records weren’t proof enough of that, ‘GREIF’ turns all of the aspects we love and admire about the fusion metallers and metaphorically turns them up to eleven. Sure, inviting the rest of the touring band into the studio rather than trying to solo run through recording a new album must have made a difference, but seven years into Zeal & Ardor’s rise and Gagneux has yet to become comfortable with where he sits in the cosmos. And we should be grateful for that; his sense of searching and hesitancy permeates ‘GREIF’, making this album another intriguing step in the Swiss mastermind’s journey.
There’s a clear parallel with Avenged Sevenfold that can’t be ignored as you listen to ‘GREIF’ – both bands have strayed further and further from traditionally trodden territory, occasionally making brief forays back to the sound that initially attracted the ticket-purchasing masses. Normally, this would alienate fans, but the faithful have embraced the new with AX7 and it’s a safe bet that they will for ‘GREIF’ too. The closest we get to 2022’s breakthrough track ‘Götterdämmerung’ is early drop ‘Hide in Shade’, which drops in the aggression we relish with rousing spiritual claps to chase away our suffering. ‘Clawing Out’ goes fully feral, aptly prowling through a menacing hellscape and utilising more threatening, harsher vocals to tip the track in an experimental direction. But then, this mercurial beast of a record flies elsewhere just as we can begin to classify it. ‘Fend You Off’ slides choral vocal world-building in between layers of huge prog expansion. ‘To my ilk’ is just gorgeous, with easy blues guitar licks undulating around Gagneux’s voice for two tender, misty minutes.
The uniting force behind each of these tracks is a glorious celebration of being the outsider, and an evocation of the strangeness of holding that status. Opener ‘the Bird, the Lion and the Wildkin’ is an atmospheric, folky opening salvo, evoking the mythical griffin that inspired the album’s title, and ‘Kilonova’ drips with tense guitar predation, leaving you with the sensation you said your inside thoughts out loud. None of these songs are an especially comfortable listen, but that’s the point; Gagneux was powered by an urge to stick a middle finger up to the establishment, and he’s subtly taking his frustrations out in every lyric. Even the softly floating ‘are you the only one now?’, twitching through translucent meditation and out the other side into disjointed, rage-filled release. It’s a puzzle box of a song, a shapeshifting trickster as so many of this collection are, slow-burning scientific bonfires that suddenly explode into something unexpected. This is an album you will nod your head sagely to, pretending that you completely understand it.
‘Go home my friend’ is maybe the safest track on the album, but even then, it’s Zeal & Ardor doing what they do best: chain-clanking, post-apocalyptic anti-blues. Along with ‘369’, the spiritual influence is limited to short, palate cleansing bursts in between Queens Of The Stone Age energy in the form of tracks like ‘Thrill’. There is so much joy on this album, twinned with intellectual stimulation if you pause for even a second. ‘GREIF’s inherent revelling in its own uniqueness makes each beat a statement about where the band are now, where they’ve been and where they’re headed. It’s a powerful album, poignant with strength in loneliness and innovation, fuelled by defiance, that pounds a stake into the ground as the first foundation for something even greater.
KATE ALLVEY