Zeal & Ardor Bring A Taste Of European Metal To Chicago

Dec 05, 2024 admin_bitlc Features, Music News, Reviews 0

---

By Kyle Decker

I first found out about Zeal and Ardor the same way a lot of white middle-class dudes find out about stuff. A podcast. Specifically Anxious & Angry, hosted by Ryan Young and Kyle Manning of the Chicago-based band Off With Their Heads. A couple years back Young mentioned Zeal and Ardor and shared the song “Don’t You Dare.” It was this weird mix of black-metal and African American spirituals. Menacing, distorted guitars coupled with percussion that called to mind rattling chains and pickaxes hitting dirt slowly building behind call-and-response gang vocals that crescendo with demonic screaming.

“Finally,” I said, “something new.”

Beginning in 2013 in Basel, Switzerland, Zeal and Ardor is the brainchild of Manuel Gagneux. His father is Swiss and his mother, African American. Both are musicians themselves and Manuel was raised with an appreciation for music. He was drawn to the heavy stuff as he grew up. Grindcore, death metal, and the like. He now splits his time between New York and his native Switzerland. He also records under the name Birdmask (also hard to classify, but general bandcamp tags include labels like “alternative”, “post soul”, and “chamber pop”). Gagneux has explained in interviews that he would share his music on 4-Chan to get feedback. Ballsy, considered the culture and climate of 4-Chan (If Reddit is the armpit of the internet, 4-Chan is its taint, or “perineum” if you want to be technical). The silver lining is that the feedback is unfiltered honesty. Though not always constructive. One day he took to the threads and asked what genres of music he should combine. One person said “black metal” another said “n-word music” (This being on 4-chan the poster had no issue using a word I refuse to write). Gagneux took those suggestions and crafted Zeal and Ardor from it. Although not immediately.

Thematically, he found some connections between the genres. The concept of rebellion is there in both. Or at least a “triumph of the will of the people” in the spirituals. Much like Norwegians, Christianity had been forced onto African slaves. Norwegian black metal pushed back against it. Typically through Satanic and Pagan references in the lyrics.

Zeal and Ardor, in a sense, is a concept band. As Gagneux has explained in multiple interviews, the music and lyrics attempt to answer the question, “What if the slaves in the US turned to Satan instead of Jesus?” This is especially apparent in the song “Devil is Fine”. There’s an alternate history narrative behind it. Which has drawn both controversy and acclaim.

Up until now, Zeal and Ardor was very much Gagneux’s baby. He even recorded most of it himself in the studio. But with the newest album, Grief, which was released this past August, Gagneux invited the band into the studio to record and collaborate. Having been playing with the same live band for 7 years Gagneux said it felt “weird” to be the only one on the albums.

I’ve heard a bit about Zeal and Ardor live. And Gagneux has said himself that “Music is a form of theatre.” So when it was announced back in July they were going to be playing Thalia Hall on December 2nd, I immediately staked my claim to review this show. Chicago La Niña winters be damned.

“Theatrical” was definitely the tone of the night. Even the opening acts had elaborate costumes and drop curtains. The first band, Zetra, is a British synth-metal duo consisting of Adam (guitar/vocals) and Jordan (synths/vocals). Their backdrop called to mind The Portal stage from Mortal Kombat. And their costumes looked like a cross between Dimmu Borgir and the Cenobites from Hellraiser. There seemed to be some implication that they were otherworldly creatures briefly emerging from another dimension to deliver a message of some kind.

The next act was the Portuguese post-black metal band Gaerea, I had never heard of before. I appreciate metal, especially of the more avant-garde variety, but I was born a punk rocker and I’ll die a punk rocker. However, it was apparent that they had as much buzz around them as the headliner. Their stage set up consisted of three panels with what appeared to be sigils. I’m sure if I dug a bit, I could find their names. But given their costuming, I’d prefer to keep the air of mystery. See, all the band members were dressed in full head to toe bodysuits and the face of their masks were sigils in the same style as the ones on the panels. The opening song had some technical issues. The main vocal mic clipped in and out and it wasn’t until the vocalist chucked it off stage in frustration that I realized it wasn’t an artistic choice. The weird effect the error had on the vocals almost worked. It certainly added to the dreamy tone of the opening bars. Even after that, the guitars seemed a bit muted compared to the vocals and the drums. The band decided to take it from the top.

“Okay, Chicago,” they said, “for real this time.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, moments like this are what make live music live music. From then on out they were tight and the crowd ate it up. The mosh pit only grew as the set went on. It was high energy and the singer executed charisma despite their entire body and face being covered. There was, of course, smoke machines and strobe lights, all of which turned the black bodysuits into silhouettes. I don’t have epilepsy. But I might after that light show. As with any vision of Hell, the music kicked ass.

Finally, Zeal and Ardor took the stage. Their logo was a massive structure fixed with angled lights. The band emerged from the fog wearing hooded cloaks to the opening whistling of “the Bird, the Lion,and the Wildkin”, the first track off the new album, Grief. I was reminded, in part, of the album covers for those CDs by the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos from the mid/late 90s when Gregorian chant was popular for a few months.

Brief flashbacks to my middle-school English teacher’s choice of music for work time aside, the imagery did suit the ironic spiritually prevalent in Zeal and Ardor’s oeuvre. Gagneux even struck a Baphomet pose at one point.

If there were technical difficulties they were either too small or I was too busy headbanging to notice. I stayed out of the mosh pit, though. I can’t slam like I used to and standing around for three to four hours was hard enough on my feet…and calves…and lower back. And also my shoulders for some reason? But the beauty of heavy, in your face live music is that it keeps you in the present, and you can forget about the relentless march of time and the ravages of nearly four-decades of bad posture.

I’ve always been impressed by Gagneux’s ability to switch from a deep soul voice to demonic howls on a dime, although I never really thought about the strategies behind it. I’m a lyrics man, ladies and gentlemen. And as a lyrics man, audio engineering techniques continue to elude my creative understanding. However, I shall nonetheless listen with rapt attention when the subject is pontificated upon by a more knowledgeable other. During the live set, he had a double mic stand, each presumably mixed to align with the drastically different vocal stylings. He’d sing into one when he sang rich and soulful, and turned his head when he needed to howl as though announcing his arrival into the fiery inferno of the damned.

Oh. And the lighting… Look, I hate when clickbait articles have headlines like, “I Need to Talk About____,” but… I need to talk about the lighting. Angled strobe lights were set up at the various cross points of the giant logo at the back of the stage. This caused the logo itself to glow and pulse independently. Occasionally red lights would hit Gagneux in such a way that the shadow cast on his face by his afro made him look like a literal demon. It was all very affecting.

Of course, some of the most charming moments came in the couple instances where Gagneux broke character to speak to the audience. He was obviously thrilled to be doing what he was doing and allowed himself to be sheepish and human. One of my general criticisms of metal, especially the admittedly cool avant stuff, is that it tends to be very self serious. But Gagneux gave Chicago a glimpse of his true, disarmingly dorky self.

“Speaking as a weird European band,” he began, “to come to a place like Chicago…and actually have people show up…is just fucking amazing. Thank you so much for being here.” The audience warmly accepted the gratitude. “But I’m not getting paid to talk.” With that it was back to the music. But, somehow, with even more love.

There’s more to it than simply the appreciation of the appreciation. Afterall, saying the name of the city you’re in is a guaranteed cheer for a band. I love that it subverted my own expectations of certain metal subgenres. That self-serious, misanthropic, transgressive aesthetic has its place and is often actually very tongue-in-cheek, but even then the presentation is very stiff upper lip. Humility is a rare thing in metal. At least the bits of it that I’ve seen presented. He’s having fun, he’s happy to be there, and grateful that this weird little thing he’s created that was catalyzed by a racist response to a simple question posed to the internet’s gooch, has been so warmly appreciated across oceans.

Okay, yes, I was a little bummed that they didn’t do “Don’t You Dare”, which is a personal favorite. But we did get a roughly twenty-minute encore (which Gagneux playfully referred to as “the little peek-a-boo thing”). So how mad can I be?

Unfortunately I was unable to obtain a setlist or even a pic of one. The stage hands crumbled them up into balls and tossed them out into the crowd. And I wasn’t about to fight a bunch of metalheads over a scrap of paper.

At least not on a work night.

But at least my Editor got it!

Zeal & Ardor live in Chicago at Thalia Hall – December 2, 2024

1. Wake of a Nation
2. Gotterdammerung
3. Ship on Fire
4. Erase
5. Gravedigger’s Chant
6. Tuskegee
7. Blood in the River
8. Killanova
9. Run
10. Golden Liar
11. Sugercoat
12. Death to the Holy
13. to my ilk
14. Feed the Machine
15. Devil is Fine
16. une ville vide
17. Trust No One
18. I Caught You
19. Clawing Out

---

---

---