10 New Bands That Prove Rock Isn't Dead

In an age of internet message boards, 4chan perhaps isn't the most warming site to visit, as evidences when Zeal & Ardor project leader Manuel Gagneux he went to the site for suggestions of what genres to fuse together. One user suggested "black metal" whilst another suggested "n*gger music". Nice.

While a self-titled demo album was released in 2014, the official debut Devil is Fine was released in 2016, written and recorded solely by Gagneux. The unusual project garnered much praise upon release that was then followed with incredible live shows with a full supporting band.

An album that makes use of black metal's traditional and almost literal meaning, Devil is Fine is an avant-garde album that combines the ferocity, tremolo picking and dark lyrics of black metal with slave spirituals that have been compared to "the tortured throats of the black fieldhands of America".

This project is by far one of the most interesting and freshest outputs from metal in a long time, the rhythmic chanting of "burn the young boy, burn him good", "as the house will burn and rust we will discern the lives we lost" and "a good god is a dead one" over Gagneux's screams is absolutely spine-chilling.