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ZAUM
Oracles

I Hate (2014)
Rating: 8/10

A sprig of mystery surrounds this debut album from Canadian duo Zaum. According to the press release, “Kyle Alexander McDonald (frontman of the 3-bassed doom band Shevil) is the vocalist and plays bass via a monolithic custom stereo FX creation layered with sitar textures and synth, while Christopher Lewis (frontman of Canadian stoner rock legends Iron Giant) plays drums and percussion”.

With that in mind I still didn’t really know what to expect from this debut offering. The album runs for over 40 minutes and only boasts four songs, so I was concerned that this was going to be a drone affair, but it’s nothing of the sort really.

The opening track is ‘Zealot’ which begins like a film soundtrack. A chiming, ruminating guitar heaves itself slowly in tandem with a simple ponderous drum beat, but once those vocal chants break into the atmosphere one cannot help but be stiffened by that chill which works its way down the spine.

Intensely gothic, Zaum have something increasingly cosmic and psychedelic about their style too. Sure, there’s a laborious edge, but not in the sense that its presented as a crushing weight just to make us suffer; Zaum constructs redolent and atmospheric music that according to the band is “conceptually driven by a deep-seated fascination with the ancient Middle East (ca 300 BC 600 AD) and its history of bloodshed influenced by religious motives and divinity”.

So to put it simple, to merely accuse, or categorise Zaum of being doom metal is downright criminal, because in spite of its occasional explorations of droning fuzz this is an absorbing opus one would never choose to escape from.

The Middle Eastern mysticism is most definitely apparent on ‘The Red Sea’, a 13-minute caper with its trickling score that finally reveals itself with bombastic spoken reverberations and that backbone of heavyweight drum, bass and guitar.

Stranger still, the songs never feel long; maybe it’s because they exist as moody scores rather than just overlong punishment. ‘Peasant Of Parthia’ begins as a murky trance-like horror tone; full of suspense, it gradually unravels as a monstrous lope where Kyle moans “The rays of a red sun ascend across the vast seas, a third star shines down upon a host of mankind”, the duo taking the listener on some peculiar trip of menacing mantras and meditative exploration.

It’s fascinating stuff indeed that reaches its climax with the 14-minute ‘Omen’, a deeply stirring and mystical swirl of aching, whinging guitar and haunting narration speaking of “ground troops” and “black floods” in war-torn mesmerism.

Oracles is definitely one for the connoisseurs who like to dabble with the diverse side of doomier music. Somehow exotic, simplistically poignant and above all intriguing, Zaum has crafted something a little different that strays well away from the usual pathways of boredom that too many bands seem to indulge in.

Neil Arnold

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