UMUR
"The Last Witness" is the 2nd full-length studio album by US, Boston, Massachusetts based death metal act Zealotry. The album was released through Lavadome Productions in April 2016. Zealotry was formed in 2005 and released their debut full-length studio album "The Charnel Expanse" in 2013.
Stylistically "The Last Witness" pretty much continues the technically well played and relatively brutal death metal style of "The Charnel Expanse". It´s murky and often dissonant, it´s pretty chaotic, and relatively brutal death metal, and it´s artists like Immolation and to a lesser extent Incantation who come to mind. So the music features that distinct dark and twisted occult sound, which makes artists in this part of the death metal spectrum such an intriguing listen. The band are well playing and the sound production is also fairly well sounding. The material is slightly one-dimensional and bleak in nature and not many tracks stand out. Something which is further enhanced by the one-dimensional, unintelligible, and rather toneless growling vocals. Given enough spins the memorability level rises, but "The Last Witness" is not an easily accessible release. There are occasional changes to the sound when a guitar solo or an acoustic section breaks the chaotic dissonant monotony, but those moments are few and far between.
So upon conclusion "The Last Witness" isn´t a revelation and it´s as such not a very unique sounding release either, but it is well performed, well produced, and reasonably well written, which means that it´s enjoyable while it plays, but doesn´t stick much longer than that. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is still deserved though.