Zeal & Ardor isn’t just a band; it’s a living and breathing entity. Like any other sentient being, it consumes, evolves, and transforms from one season to the next. Its shape may change though its spirit remains the same. Founded and fronted by Manuel Gagneux, it has only sharpened its claws, lengthened its teeth, and steeled its nerves over the years, growing more undeniable and unpredictable in the process.

After gathering tens of millions of streams and earning widespread critical acclaim, this beast proves as dynamic and dangerous as ever on its fourth full-length album, GRIEF.

“Zeal & Ardor is very much a thing in transit,” Manuel observes. “It’s definitely a restless organism that I have the privilege of raising.”

He’s done a hell of a job raising it so far…

In 2017, Zeal & Ardor embedded itself deep inside of popular culture with the seminal full-length debut, Devil Is Fine. In between touring worldwide, the band progressed across Stranger Fruit [2018] and Zeal & Ardor [2022]. The latter incited unanimous tastemaker praise. Beyond applause from NPR, Paste, Brooklyn Vegan, Alternative Press, and many others, Metal Hammer highlighted its “near perfection” in a “4.5-out-of-5 star” review, while The Line of Best of Fit hailed, “Zeal & Ardor continue to assert their versatility.” The band graced the cover of KERRANG!, while the record landed high in the charts in multiple countries globally.

However, Manuel decided to switch up the process for GREIF. Rather than creatively fly solo, he welcomed his bandmates into the studio. As such, the musicians—Tiziano Volante [guitar], Marc Obrist [vocals], Denis Wagner [vocals], Lukas Kurmann [bass], and Marco Von Allmen [drums]—spread their wings alongside him.

“The guys basically gave this project seven years of their lives on tour, so it felt odd to be the only one on the albums,” he says. “The sound is more of an analog to what we do on stage. You get the same idiots, just on vinyl,” he laughs.

“We’ve really evolved into a tight-knit unit,” adds Marc. “Before Zeal & Ardor, we were basically strangers, but we’re like a little family now. Each member brings his own unique flavor to the mix, and we all try to make Manuel’s songs better in our own way. The most interesting part for me was the new approach of how we work together in the studio.”

Decamping to Marc’s studio *Hutch Sounds* in Switzerland, the record came to life in just five months. The frontman excitedly leveraged the talents of his cohorts, featuring three voices for the first time and emboldening the sound from every angle.

“I wanted to expand upon what we had and introduce new colors,” he goes on. “There are angry and accusatory moments, but there’s also some solace and happiness. I’m widening the palette of colors we have to paint with. These are avenues we haven’t tried.”

Tiziano concurs, “This album feels like a warm homecoming into a place of uncertainty. What could be described as the start of another era artistically is probably more of a coming to life of a bigger beast in the form of a more communicative and better organized collective.”

Ethereal glockenspiel sets the tone for the lead single “Fend You Off.” This dreamy melody belies a seething intensity, which boils over on a crescendo uplifted by a trio of voices in arresting harmony. As the riff kicks into high gear, Manuel repeats, “There’s a thorn in my side.”

“Whereas prior albums were more community calls-to-action, this is a personal quest,” he reveals. “‘Fend You Off’ is about how you can be defensive to a person who’s being toxic to you. You’re swallowing your tongue up until the moment you can’t do it anymore.”

On “Kilonova,” the bass and guitars mimic the anxious thump of a heartbeat, locking into a head-nodding rhythm awash in delay. Chants pierce the fray, bleeding into a breathy refrain.

“A ‘Kilonova’ is when two supernovas collide,” he states. “It’s the type of grandeur I’m after.”

His menacing delivery barely cracks a whisper on the vicious “Clawing Out.” It bludgeons and bruises with an infectious insidiousness conjured on the chorus as everyone shouts in unison.

“It’s one of the heaviest songs I’ve ever written,” he affirms. “It has a hardcore kick. Lyrically, ‘Clawing Out’ is about finding your way out of a rut. You’re in a shitty situation, and you’re fighting back.”

“Disease” hinges on a smoky drumbeat as a blues guitar lead cuts through a thick bass groan, climaxing with a mantra. “It’s a little more rock ‘n’ roll,” he comments. “I’m taking risks, because I don’t want to make the same song over and over.”

Then, there’s “Hide In Shade.” It channels the collective’s signature black metal stomp with a vital volley of extreme emotions. “I still wanted to have a classic Zeal & Ardor moment,” he proclaims. “It’s a gateway song.”

The ride concludes on the plaintive and poetic “to my ilk.” Loose blues guitar snakes around strong claps as Manuel’s voice echoes through a choir. “It has another level of emotion, and it came out just the way I imagined,” he remarks.

The title, GREIF, is inspired by an annual tradition in Manuel’s hometown of Basel, Switzerland. A mythical hybrid creature parades through the streets for the children in symbolism of the Basel’s working people balking at the oppressive elite on its other side. Given the animal’s amalgam of energies and physicality, the name proved apropos.

“The GREIF is a lion, a snake, and a bird,” he notes. “During the parade, he turns his backside to the aristocrats and sticks it to the man. It reflects where we are.”

Leaning into a signature hybrid of its own, Zeal & Ardor elevates once again.

“We invite listeners to hear the full spectrum of the different sides and sounds that make Zeal & Ardor,” Tiziano leaves off. “There are some gorgeous moments, but it packs in a lot of intensity and charm. In Manuel’s songwriting and the process with every member, there’s a certain intentionality as well as an element of randomness and accident. I can’t wait to see people’s reactions.”

“Zeal & Ardor is my passion, my self-realization, and my friends,” Manuel concludes. “It’s basically what allows me to continue to be this weirdo for a job! It’s basically everything to me.”

Behind black shrouds of obscurity and desolation, the performers of GAEREA deliver their odes in cascading maelstroms of aggression and beauty. Emerging from the age of pandemic to whatever awaits humanity next, the dark horde remains on the frontlines of the next generation of extreme metal. With an EP and three albums to their name, GAEREA has rapidly distinguished themselves from the thousands of bands toiling away in the underground. Brewing their cauldron of sound from a recipe of pounding black-metal blast mixed with a touch of harrowed, reflective longing, many devotees of the darkened arts have flocked to their banner. With the emergence of third full-length album Mirage, those numbers certainly grew.

GAEREA met a challenge when releasing their second album during the pandemic, the aptly titled Limbo, to excellent world reception. In the meantime, they found the total suspension of interactive life as it was previously known to be the perfect breeding ground for further creation and making. 

Sizzling with ambition from day one, GAEREA may present one unique face to their audience, masked and enshrouded, but the truth is they have not remained changeless. 

As their previous album name ‘Mirage’ suggests, the inability to trust what our senses are telling us could be construed as one of the album’s central themes. Rather than constrict their art to mythological references or anti-religious tropes, GAEREA instead plumb the depths of the human experiences of isolation and suffering.
Just two years since ‘Mirage’ was released, GAEREA is here, erupting with intensity, casting forth black ashes over the world yet again.

Their latest release, ‘Coma’, has finally surfaced, marking a pivotal shift. From this point forward, everything changes. It’s time for GAEREA to bridge the gap between underground metal and the elevated realm they’ve attained. With ‘Coma’, GAEREA emerges from the underground scene, ascending towards a permanently lasting position at the head of the table. 

An emotional gateway to a dark black metal scene, a guide to salvation, pain, despair and letting go. Moving up, into the blackness that is above. GAEREA is the answer, the only answer. 

Within ‘Coma’s’ ten tracks lies an individual narrative, each with its own tale to unveil. Collectively, they blend nuances of aggression, tranquility, solitude, and fervour.

Boasting a superior production that threads the needle between clarity and causticness, GAEREA yet again admit their loyalty to producer Miguel Tereso of Demigod Recordings for the production of ‘Coma’. Together they created the birth of ‘Coma’, the new era for metal mankind. Distinguishing themselves ever more so, the Vortex handpicked their artist Nathan Lorenzo with a clear assignment to create their mesmerizing cover artwork. Months of hand drawing the image with a ball-pen lead to this masterpiece which dipped her name into ‘Coma’. 

The beauty of extreme metal band GAEREA lies in the directness and simplicity found within their florid tapestry of extremity and aggression. Whether it is in the less-polished aural dynamite of Mirage, or in the lustrous textures of Coma, GAEREA is building a mighty edifice of metal. With talons dipped in the inky blood of black metal and scraped across the flesh of human suffering, GAEREA is leading a charge into the future of darkness, and all those who find beauty and power in the dark side of existence would do well to take heed.

Spectres have been stirring in the shadows for years now. Dark eyes watching from pallid faces. Siren songs calling to lost souls. In the blackest corners of the UK underground, a name whispered relentlessly amongst the faithful, first with curiosity, then soul-shuddering awe: Zetra.

“Zetra is another place, on another plane,” reads the scrawl on a tattered document, illuminated by both candlelight and the crackling static of ancient CRT screens, deep in the shadowy inner sanctum of Britain’s most mysterious band. “It was built on truth. Fatalistic truth. Bad things happen, but they happen for a reason. Catastrophically, however, Zetra has been infected by the poison of falsehood, eroded – as with acid – at its very foundations. Now, a journey into the grey between truth and lies. A search for salvation from the deceptions that might strangle us all…” 

Two figures lead the way. These are The Wanderers. Those who have crossed their path have already called them by many names: The Flighty and The Heavy; The Dagger and The Staff; Vocals and Synthesiser; Beauty and The Beast. Individually and collectively, though, they too are Zetra.

“And as long as there is a shard of Zetra somewhere in the universe, Zetra can be wholly rebuilt…”

Zetra is also the title of their striking debut LP. Ten tracks whose indefinable blend of shimmering shoegaze and pulsating goth-metal work deep beneath the skin, it is a masterclass in intimate dark romanticism and sweeping elemental beauty. It could be seen as a reaction to the geography of a strange new world, but also to the jagged topography of the human psyche itself. Is it a manifesto? A roadmap? A riddle waiting to be solved? Profound pleasure lies in peeling back its many layers.

“They are observers of different events, different times, different themes,” The Document teases at threads of mystique, generating more fascination than obfuscation. “But Zetra are beyond your reckoning…”

Initially, its songs feel like reactions to the jaded machinations and contradictions of humankind. Dramatic opener ‘Suffer Eternally’, for instance, is an existential reckoning on the perpetual pain of life on earth into which Zetra have been drawn: “Breathe in fallout / It’s over / We were born to suffer / Eternally alone at the altar…”. ‘Sacrifice’, meanwhile, digs into the delicate balance between trading things away in our hour of need and dealing with those losses down the line. Its arch perspective feels often as if Superman’s Kal-El or Transformers’ Optimus Prime had emerged from the Stygian darkness between stars, armed not with muscle or metal, but only spellbinding sound.

Travelling alone, armed only with synths, guitar and drum-machine to compose, The Wanderers’ music could sound skeletal. Instead its early metallic bones have been fleshed-out with the electronic new-wave of Gary Numan and Pet Shop Boys and dreamy, droning guitars that hark to heroes like Slowdive and Sonic Youth as well as dark contemporaries Deafheaven and Alcest. As harsh as the truths with which they deal may be, these songs deliver beguiling brilliance.

“There is a beauty in the discord,” The Document goes on. “It is crucial to acknowledge that. Deception can become an addictive poison. Unpredictability can be fuel for great adventure…”

Indeed, the album’s later tracks embrace life’s chaos, often seeded from a greater moral ambiguity and rejection of the notion of predestined fate in favour of free will. Shimmering highlight ‘The Mirror’ asks whether it is the observer or their reflection truly in control: “The day will not be forced / Who is free, you control me…”. **‘Shatter The Mountain’**s metaphorical world-breaking – “Give up your final hope / Out in the wastelands / There’s nothing for you…” – contrasts with Gaia’s steady-handed portrait of a species burning the ground on which they exist: “Gaia’s on fire / Ignite her!”. **‘Starfall’**s celestial glow is counterpointed by the mercurial ‘Moonfall’. Even the drained euphoria of intoxicating final track ‘Miracle’ feels like a bittersweet riposte to the album’s caustic beginning.

“The road has led to more questions than answers. Even in the grey, though, hope is never lost…”

Acolytes to spread the word of Zetra aren’t hard to find. British ‘contemporaries’ like Burner and Wallowing, Celestial Sanctuary and Employed To Serve have been dementedly singing their praises as far back as they can remember. Tours with the heavyweight likes of Creeper and Godflesh, VV and SKYND have taken their once-subterranean sounds into the spotlight.  Unto Others’ Gabriel Franco (‘Moonfall’), Svalbard’s Serena Cherry (‘Starfall’) and Sólveig Matthildur Kristjánsdóttir from Iceland’s Kælan Mikla (‘Shatter The Mountain’) even crop up amongst these recordings, dissolving into the cult of Zetra themselves. But none are as important as the legions of fans Zetra are yet to reach with a dark gospel still unpicking all manner of psychological knots and existential truths.

“The door has only just opened…” The Document concludes with a mesmerising promise that devotees won’t be able to help but follow into the lengthening shadow. “These recordings aren’t the end of Zetra’s journey. They are but The Beginning. So listen closely to find where this dark path leads…”