Artist: Ziminiar
Country: Unknown
Label: Azermedoth Records / Bitter Misery Records / Victims Of Fate
Formats: LP / Cassette tape / CD
Year: 2023
When literally nothing is known about a band and their origins it all comes down to the bare musical essence. And in the case of Ziminiar’s music on their debut ‘The Dwellers in Eternal Shadow’ that loudly speaks for itself. The album consists of just two songs that clock in at 13 to 15 minutes each, but the music behind the lengthy tracks may not exactly be as expected.
Ziminiar plays raw and blazing Black Metal with a depressive undertone and a rather Lo-Fi production. The first track ‘Ruler of the Domain’ bursts straight out of the gates with its thunderous drums, contorted bass, distorted shrieks and a gritty guitar sound. And there’s a few things that are striking about it. At the core there are just a few riffs that make up the lengthy composition, but at no point does it feel repetitive. The band varies the tempo often enough and alternates between more melancholic slower riffs and faster more piercing melodies with great care, making the elements recognisable but never too monotonous. For music that’s raw and gnarly, the songwriting is subtle enough that transitions never feel forced and a riff that reoccurs feels more like welcoming back one of your personal demons rather than being confronted with the same old thing time and again. The overall pace is rather high, which is probably the most uncommon combination with the length of the track an style, but it just works tremendously and perhaps unexpectedly well. And to think that it gets even better in ‘Dark Winds Command the Throne’. A storm announces the thunder that is to come, a suffocating track that combines the dark and eerie undertones that border on Doom Metal riffage and atmosphere with furious rampage and an ever-shifting rhythmic section. There is a little bit less focus on repetitive elements in this song, instead opting for a continuously morphing structure that even escalates into a beautiful dungeon synth intermezzo. The transitions are fluent, alternating between the depressive slower sections, piercing melodies and the gritty and intense bouts of rage seamlessly.
With an LP version on Bitter Misery Records, a Cassette tape on Victims Of Fate and CDs made available by Azermedoth Records (not to mention digitally available via Bandcamp) there is an option for everyone. I wouldn’t sleep on this though, these two lengthy tracks of raw and depressive Lo-Fi Black Metal with a magnificent hint of dungeon synth make Ziminiar’s debut one hell of an impressive record!
