With their primal sound, murky production, throbbing bass sound and power-trio format, one could say that these Dubliners have perfectly captured the current ‘the cruder the better’ zeitgeist.
But although they’re only three years active, ZOM’s first proper full-length proves that they’re already wading into new and much more psychedelic territories – not that they’ve lost any of their fascination for Blasphemy, Axis Of Advance or the overall bestial aesthetic of the whole ‘war metal’ subgenre.
Following the trench opened by last year’s debut EP and as exemplified by the subsonic ramblings of opener Tombs Of The Void, where the more vomited-than-growled vocals seem to resonate from the centre of a black hole, these 32 tempestuous minutes are as chaotic and suffocating as expected.
Yet there’s something earthier but at the same time quite cosmic about Flesh Assimilation, especially how its numerous slower tracks (with Conquest verging on doom) or weird interludes manage to keep their collective feet firmly in the ground while projecting the listeners’ brain unto the stratosphere. Hideous in its outcome yet far more advanced in its design, ZOM are already in a league of their own./o:p
