Of my many random albums that I acquired via a closing
record store on Ebay, “War of Liberation” by Zeroed happened to be one of those
albums. Not much is known about the band (at least from what I can find), but
Zeroed hail from Germany and play an old school style of death metal. Now,
given that this album was completely (and still is) under the radar, I wasn’t sure
what to expect. However, I’ve always attested to the notion that, when it comes
to heavy metal music, sometimes the most unknown albums can quickly turn into
hidden gems.
Clocking in just a hair over 27 minutes (not including 31, 4
second blank tracks before a 2 minute hidden track) “War of Liberation” is a
short blast of death metal. The thing I noticed immediately about this album
was that, even though it was a very underground release, the production was top
notch. The moment the opening riff on “Black Song” began, I could tell that
this would not be some basement produced death metal. In fact, as the album
continued, I found myself more and more impressed with the music as a whole. There
are plenty of death metal chugging riffs to be had, but there are also many catchy,
more melodic riffs are present as well. The band members only identify as
letters (FF on vocals), but OM dose a very nice job altering between the old
school sounding rhythms and melodic solos. The drumming here is pretty straight
forward, but in a good way. JZ offers both a furious display of blast beats and
double bass, while some songs (“Ered Ruft”) he plays a more, plodding doom
style of percussion. The bass is very noticeable throughout the album (kudos to
the production here), especially on the song “Erde Ruft”. Vocal wise, FF (along
with JZ on additional vocals) has a, I hate to say standard sound, but that is
the only way I can describe them without devaluing their sound. Good for the
record, but I can’t say they stand out in my mind.
Overall, Zeroed’s “War
of Liberation” fits the exact definition of what I would call a hidden gem. It’s
b no means a stellar release as it has its faults. Not every song on the album
is as memorable as other, some suffering from a vanilla death metal sound. That
being said, there isn’t much to complain about on “War of Liberation”. Again,
not perfect, but for a completely unknown, random acquisition, I was more than
happy to have this fall into my lap. (As of this post, the album is on YouTube.
Give it a listen and hear for yourself)
Highlights: “7th Plague” “Ered Ruft” “Black Song”
Rating: 3
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