Now that the post-Bloodbath, Stockholm homage glow seems to have passed, with even Bloodbath moving away from their Entombed/Dismember/ Grave worship for Nightmares Made Flesh, here comes Lord K (The Project Hate) and his second super group of old school Swedish death mongers featuring Emperor Magus Caligula – Vocals (Dark Funeral, Hypocrisy, Dominion Caligula), Tomas Elofsson – Bass (Divine Desecration, Sanctification), Tobias Gustafsson – Drums (Vomitory, Eureka).
Those that panned the band’s debut, World Wide Death for its singular and un creative pace, will find a slightly more dynamic and varied beast within Zombienomicon, as Lord K and Co. have unfettered the reins and allowed God Among Insects a far wider birth and of course it all comes with a gloriously brutal, humming mid range production that’s identical to The Project Hate’s exceptional tones just without the female vocals and techno beats.
There’s far more variety and mood on this album and as a result it’s the sort of snarling Swedish beast that Grave should be putting out. Of course, there’s not much complexity or technical noodling but there’s plenty of mid range blasting mayhem (more so than the debut) and hefty grooves to make fans of the Stockholm era salivate as it culls from all the greats.
From the opening blast of “The First House”, through the raucous “F(wh)oreplay” and “They Came in Thousands”, the chunky spew of “Zombie Torture”, the lumbering “Toth Tuann”, the incredible retro chug of instrumental “Marching of to War” (featuring arguably the most Stockholm riff of this millennium) and the Autopsy like crawl of “Fucked by the Dead”, this album slurs and lopes with Nihilistic simplicity .
Zombienomicon is unabashedly to the point and simplistic, but also seems brutally honest in its direction and goal. Its isn’t trying to be a ground breaking album, it just wants to pay homage to ‘that sound’ and does so superbly.
