The first time I heard Steve Moore was the soundtracks for Mayhem and The Mind’s Eye (2017 and 2016 respectively). Zombi is a collaboration between Moore and A.E. Paterra and I have taken a deep dive into their music since getting the promo for Direct Inject.

Since their inception in 2001 they’ve released six studio albums including Escape Velocity and Surface to Air, their previous album Zombi & Friends, Vol.1(2022) is a crazy collection of cover songs and includes a brilliant version of “Sirius/Eye in the Sky” by The Alan Parsons Project. But I have to digress or else I’ll get lost in the weeds and unable to get out. 2024 sees the release of Direct Inject and it’s a perfect album for these sordid times we’re living in these days.

You might be wondering, constant reader, how any of this Electronic Darkwave (I don’t know what to call this, I just made that up on the fly) but, how does this connect to Metal, Death or whatever sub-genre you want to pick? It’s all about extremities; in Death Metal you have the blasting and shredding guitars, growling vocals and so forth. Black Metal stabs at the atmosphere to drive the intensity of the music, but with bands like Abruptum (r.i.p. IT) and early Ulver it was the instrumental atmosphere of darkness that engulfed the listener in it’s shroud.

Keeping that in mind, Direct Inject is a fucking HEAVY album, in itself a view of the nasty underbelly of humanity.

First and title track takes off with bright synths and hard-hitting grooving drums, then the synthesizer winds its way through the song, almost like a guitar in its way, chugging at times. Around the 3:35 mark it slows abruptly to a menacing crawl that segues perfectly into “So Mote It Be” a sludge fest with the synths creating a picture of oncoming evil, “Bodies in the Flotsam” continues with an utterly hopeless feeling created from the heart of the beats that A.E. Paterra puts down like a fucking human metronome. “Kamichi & Sandy” sounds like an unfolding love story, but there’s something malicious  going on under the surface. “Sessuale II” is by far one of my favorite tracks, a somber, saxophone-driven affair atmospheric as a Hammer Horror film.

I swear, the sounds that Moore pulls from his synthesizers are simply mind-bending. “Improvise Adapt Overcome” struts like a diseased whore, swaggering while leaving a blood trail behind. “The Post-Atomic Horror” lumbers like a giant, ancient mammal heavy and brutal. The final two tracks “Insurmountable Odds” and “Sessuale I” close the album with diabolical precision. This shit is amazing, and with headphones on your mind will be transported to another dimension, I’m not kidding in the slightest.

Zombi are masters of their own art. They are regarded among such bands as Goblin, Tangerine Dream and Trans Am. If you are looking for something that drips atmosphere and gives you chills in the best way possible then I highly recommend Zombi.

 

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