UMUR
"Zeal & Ardor" is the first demo recording by Swiss/US metal act Zeal & Ardor and it was independently released as a digital demo album in June 2014. Mainman behind the project Manuel Gagneux was born in Basel, Switzerland but moved to New York in his early twenties and started chamber pop group Birdmask. Zeal & Ardor was originally just meant to be a fun side-project for Gagneux, but it soon grew so popular that it became his main project.
Gagneux recorded all instruments and vocals on the demo (including programming the drums). Featuring 10 tracks and a total playing time of 24:57 it´s a bit short to be called an album release, but also a bit long to be labelled a demo, so demo album is probably a valid description of the release.
Other than a few places, you wouldn´t think of this release as a demo if you listened to it though, and it´s actually a bit hard to understand why Gagneux has made it an effort to disassociate himself from it or at least make it very hard for his fans to listen to it. Especially considering that the material featured on the demo is exclusive to this release. I could understand it if the quality of the material or the sound production values were sub par, but that´s not th case at all. This is a very well sounding release.
Stylistically Gagneux aimed at creating a project which combined African-American spirituals (slave songs) with black metal, but there is also an electronic music element in the music of Zeal & Ardor as well as nods toward industrial rock/metal, and soul and blues. It´s just a huge melting pot of different music styles and influences and somehow Gagneux makes it work. His soulful and expressive clean vocals are powerful and pleasant, and his extreme metal vocals are decent too. Honestly the black metal sections and influences on this release are relatively limited and you could probably play a good deal of this release to most people without them noticing the extreme metal element. So it´s not an "in your face" type aggression that Gagneux have built into his music, but a more subtle and often melodic black metal influence.
As written above this is a high quality demo release in terms of production values, performances, and also when it comes to the varied songwriting. Maybe a little more of a red thread through the compositions is lacking, but it´s nothing serious and this is still a very interesting first release from Zeal & Ardor. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.