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The Wait is Over: Greif has been released, and the international tour is making a stop in Copenhagen (AmagerBio, August 28, 2024), just a few days after the release of the new album.
The concert sold out in just a few days; anyone familiar with them wants to be there. With some good old Italian stubborness, we managed to secure a spot for an interview. We prefer to share stories without filters, so we’ll let the charismatic frontman and vocalist Manuel speak directly in the video.
The Interview
We were led backstage, and true to our laid back style, we had a casual chat in the relaxed atmosphere of the kitchen.
Notes
The Copenhagen date marks the first concert following the release of the new album Greif. With the new work still fresh, we begin our interview with a brief summary of Zeal & Ardor’s musical evolution up to now.
We start with the debut LP Devil is Fine and the earlier project Birdmask. Then is turn for the LP Stranger Fruit, which refined Zeal & Ardor’s style, adding the power of caustic lyrics to the blend of slave music and metal, inspired by Lewis Allan and performed by Billie Holiday. Next, we also discuss the intense anger in the LPs Wake of A Nation and Zeal & Ardor.
Greif is an undeniably experimental album. During the interview, I intend to emphasize the significance of this album in the band’s artistic progression. Music is a personal experience, and Greif undoubtedly expands the sonic and thematic space of this band beyond the formula previously explored. The tracks “Sugarcoat,” “Thrill,” and “Solace” are examples of their desire to offer new and bold sounds. Greif is potentially a divisive album, especially for those who expected the same formula that initially brought the band success.
As Manuel’s words reveal, Greif aims to be a space for the authors’ most personal expression, and I personally admire Manuel and his bandmates’ ability to carve out their own creative space, blending new sounds that range from industrial to soul and pop-rock. Perhaps it is a more thematic LP than their previous works, but it stands out, particularly for Manuel, who makes this project his own, drawing inspiration from his earlier project Birdmask.
To better understand the current universe of Manuel from which this album was born, we delve into other musical and literary subjects of his interest. Among the musical tracks mentioned are “Retrovertigo” (Mr. Bungle), “Roads” (Portishead), and “L’Histoire Du Soldat” (Stravinsky). These songs are well-suited to understanding the many mid-tempo passages and the cross-genre influences found in many tracks of Greif. An identifiable example is “The Bird, the Lion and the Wildkin,” which combines mid-tempo with a melody based on snare drum marches and an electronic sound similar to a short military flute.
In the literary field, we mention The Dawn of Everything (D. Graeber & D. Wengrow), a discussion on the non-linear nature of socio-historical evolution. We then comment on the cultural context in which the grimoires and occultism of the 17th-18th centuries developed, as an example of ambivalence and rebellion.
The Grief Tour Live Show
The venue is already packed at the opening of the Finnish duo Nyos. Their guitar and drums fill the space well with balanced ambient melodies, capable of providing the right dose of energy and dreamlike sensations. The space is broad and ethereal, vaguely reminiscent of the early days of God is an Astronaut.
The room is now full; I look around and notice a very diverse audience, not just metalheads. Zeal & Ardor’s style seems to have also attracted progressive rock fans, deservedly so, considering the musical diversity of Greif. The stage setup is similar to the previous shows. When the lights come on, the three vocalists occupy the center of the stage, with guitars on either side and drums at the back, yet the band seems more composed and precise in the placement on the stage.
Zeal & Ardor immediately start with “The Bird, the Lion and the Wildkin,” making it clear that this concert, too, will be a different experience from the previous ones.
“Wake of a Nation” and “Götterdämmerung” follow, giving an energetic push before returning to tracks more influenced by gospel. It’s fascinating to note how songs from different albums are alternated throughout the concert. This is perhaps a bold choice, considering the varied tastes of the audience, but it serves to provide an overall view of Zeal & Ardor’s music.
I find the sequence “Sacrilegium III,” “Death to the Holy,” “To My Ilk” particularly successful; despite being radically different, the three songs unexpectedly flow well together through their dark atmosphere.
Zeal & Ardor are not playing it safe: among the songs from Greif, they choose to include perhaps the most innovative compared to their usual sound: “Kilonova,” “Sugarcoat,” and “Clawing Out,” leaving out the easy choice “Hide in Shade.”
Despite these bold choices, the concert was a great success, much appreciated by the entire audience. Nearly two hours of show flew by, thanks to the variety of sounds and the excellent organization of the setlist, which offered a different experience with each track.
This is the third Zeal & Ardor concert I’ve attended: perhaps it wasn’t the most indulgent, but it was certainly the most comprehensive and emotionally expansive. When I discovered them during the Stranger Fruit tour, I was struck by their sound from the very first note; everything that followed was an enveloping and fascinating journey into “slave gospel metal.” The next concert, for the release of Zeal & Ardor, was a furious outburst of metal rage in the heart of the night.
With the Greif tour, it was an immersion into a complex and sometimes contrasting world; but precisely for this reason, it was even more significant in the context of a band in constant evolution.
Acknowledgments
We thank NeeCee Agency for facilitating our attendance at the concert and arranging the interview with the band.
