Artist: Zkywbrezdreb
Country: USA
Label: Elf Eggs
Formats: Demo Tape
Year: 2025
With seemingly little effort, the anonymous figure behind projects such as Red Right Hand Of Plague, Kos, Thirsting Ampoule, Vëřťžîmbrÿġțžûmşțřě and Great Tribulation, as well as the Elf Eggs label, churns out one project after another. Now we have Zkywbrezdreb, who this year wants to make the world a better place with two demo tapes at once. None of the things related to this person are easy to digest, and Zkywbrezdreb’s Raw Black Metal, bordering Blacknoise, is certainly no exception.
With a playing time of almost half an hour, we are presented with piece of music that is very low in riffs and has a remarkable lack of standard Black Metal ingredients, making it a hellish ride that tugs you through fever dreams and nightmares. While the terms of “Raw Black Metal” and “Lo-Fi Black Metal” might make you think of bands like Black Cilice or Sanguine Relic, this gives you quite a different perspective on the same basic principles. Raw and lo-fi, for sure, but this feels much closer to a demented mash-up between old and classic Abruptum and some of the most deranged crackhead freaks out of the Les Légions Noires camp like Brenoritvrezorkre or Vzaéurvbtre. Not for the faint, not for the weak.
Yet, while those acts can be accused of offering nothing more than noise and being there for noise’s sake, ‘Remnants Of Human Ash’ still feels closer to the same touch and feel of Raw Black Metal – maybe even not all that far removed from those harsher Havohej recordings. It might not exactly feel like new ground is covered or Zkywbrezdreb is genuinely pushing boundaries, it is a rare thing that this sort of music is able to captivate in such fashion. It also craftfully stays off the roads of chaos and overall messiness, this truly feels like a composed sort of insanity.
