https://youtu.be/jlGBer0VoF8 What does /mu/ think of the mix

The genre mashup itself actually works surprisingly well. The album itself could use a bit more polish. If Zeal and Ardor does this again with a little better execution, I could see this getting big.

>>73752499
It's pretty great. Like >>73752536 said, you wouldn't expect it to work as well as it does, but it does.

>>73752536
Hopefully if it gets popular enough they will get the chance

>>73752499
too much glockenspiel

>>73752581
Yeah, I have my fingers crossed. Devil Is Fine was crazy promising for something that came out of a /mu/ post, of all things. It made it on Noisey's end of the year list IIRC.

>>73752499
Eh. It's good and like >>73752536 said, it's much more natural sounding of a mash-up than I would've expected before I first heard the album. But to me this project is very very style-over-substance. I'm impressed that he (it's a one-man project, right?) was able to make the fusion not sound gimmicky or downright awful, but I think the next step in the project's progression is to actually improve songwriting and do something that sounds like more than just a bog-standard spiritual spliced in with a bog-standard black metal song, which is what most of this album (bar a few songs) sounds like. I'd like to hear this idea fleshed out and explored a bit more now that the main guy behind it is presumably more confident in making this type of music, but I'm not expecting anything mind-blowing substance-wise because they haven't really given me that so far.

It's funny, I always find myself very tempted to draw comparisons between Zeal & Ardor and Algiers. They're very similar in their theory of taking soulful spiritual "black" music and blending it with more esoteric and darker styles (Black metal in Z&A's case, Post-punk/industrial in Algiers's case). I think the comparison exemplifies what I mean by Z&A being style over substance - Algiers doesn't just rely on the wow factor of "whoa these guys mixed two completely different genres and it sounds natural", they have some legitimately great concepts and ideas behind their music, and their songwriting started off great and has only gotten better since they first emerged in the scene. They're good musicians who happen to play a unique combination of genres, and that's what I hope Z&A can evolve into.

>>73752641
What song of Algiers's do you recommend?

>>73752641
I also always end up comparing them/him to Algiers. Good analysis though. I disagree that it's standard black metal though. Devil is Fine had a lot more in common with blackgaze than standard black metal in my eyes. Z&A has a lot of potential though. I really hope he lives up to it.
>>73752664
They only have two albums atm. I'd recommend listening to both. They're both fantastic (The Underside of Power is probably my AOTY right now). If you really just want a track to try before that though, maybe listen to The Underside of Power or Blood.

>>73752664
From their first album: Irony Utility Pretext, Blood
From their newest one: Underside of Power, Cleveland

>>73752536

>The genre mashup itself actually works surprisingly well.

This. It's clearly a gimmick, but not a grating one.

I could actually see this getting onto the soundtrack of some normie TV show.

>>73752727
Yeah that's true, maybe "standard black metal" isn't the most accurate descriptor for it, the black metal-ish sound they have isn't generic or anything. I guess I just mean a lot of it sounds like one motif repeated for a whole song, whereas some of the more interesting black metal/blackgaze bands take a concept and evolve it throughout the song and change up the pace. But I still like their music fine enough, it's not bad by any means and there's tons of potential to make this something that's as big and as impressive as Algiers