VAULTS OF ZIN — Kadath (review)

Album · 2016 · Avant-garde Metal

4/5 · 2020-02-18
siLLy puPPy

The Denton, TX band VAULTS OF ZIN got its start in 2011 with its self-titled release where this quartet of Rob Buttrum (drums), Greg Dixon (guitar / electric violin), Shane Hutchinson (bass / vocals) and Stephen Lucas (synthesizer) were inspired by the zeuhl rhythms of 1970s Magma along with other retro prog characteristics that once married with some modern day metal guitar distortion created a rather interesting new direction for France’s most significant contribution to the prog world. It took five whole years but the band finally released its sophomore album KADATH in 2016. Both the band’s name and title were inspired by H.P. Lovecraft as is the dark scary music that erupts from the five tracks.

While the Magma influences are still in play with the bubbling repetitive zeuhl rhythms providing the underpinning of the musical flow, KADATH has a more varied overall sound than the debut. Although the first album had a lot of early Univers Zero avant-prog characteristics, KADATH takes those even further with knotted angular workouts that are augmented with bizarre keyboards freakiness that would sound at home on many 70s prog extravaganzas along with very heavy guitar sounds that often crank out doom metal but more often exhibit a jittery counterpoint to the jazzy drumming and building of tension that leads to noisy crescendoes. In those ways there have been comparisons to both Toby Driver’s Maudlin of the Well and Kayo Dot as well as with the more atmospheric realms of France’s Nebelnest.

If you ask me though i think VAULTS OF ZIN adopt many of the characteristics of neighboring Yeti from Fort Worth where they create long sprawling psychedelic compositions that ooze on through time but are given the touches of complexity by the off-kilter drum rolls, guitar sustain and jittery chops, eerie synthesizer presence and most of all a lugubrious sounding violin that emerges from time to time. While the debut was entirely instrumental, KADATH does add some vocals here and there but for the most part KADATH eschews the vocal performances. When they do occur however, VAULTS OF ZIN sounds more like a sludge metal band with growly screams and extreme metal bravado however for the most part this one could pass as a psychedelic cosmic bypass into a strange new world. The music is more often tagged as avant-garde metal since the metal is omnipresent but just not done in a traditional metal manner.

The album is bookmarked by the longest tracks with “Amduat” rampaging onto the scene with some of the heaviest sounds on the album as doom metal riffs usher in the zeuhl rhythms and surreal atmospheres whereas the 22 minute finale “Moongate / Heart Girt With a Serpent” that pretty much summarizes the whole album with lengthy heady walks through the psychedelic pastures while implemented the bass grooves lollygag slowly with guitar feedback screeching from the background. While predominantly instrumental Shane Hutchinson screams through many segments and sounds a lot like Mastodon’s Brent Hinds on vocals. This is an album that is good to get lost in as it’s all about the turbulent atmospheres that take a more psychedelic version of avant-prog, adds some zeuhl rhythms and then turns it more aggressive with gnarled dissonant metal guitar sounds and vocals. Perhaps not to everyone’s tastes but works for me.