Labels: Adagio830 – Apocaplexy – Protagonist
Review by: Alex Deller
Zann have been together a decade now. Christ. Where did all those years go? Scary and, to tell you the truth, a little depressing. Doesn’t seem like that long ago that I was picking the records they shared with bands like Funeral Diner or Racebannon out of distro boxes at the Swan. Here they do what they’ve been doing since they’ve been going: big, rough-edged metal that gives a nod to those they took the baton from (Acme, Systral, Carol etc.), adds in some 00s Euro screamo chaos and then dollops some 90s sxe chug on top of that. There are two tracks on the record, ‘You Are Like A Dog Without A Leash To Guide Your Feet’ which has some cool melodic breaks but seems a bit cobbled together and ‘I’m Finally Kicked Awake By Visions Taking Shape’ which is more up my alley thanks to the slower, crawling riffs, taut dynamics and the fact that it all seems a lot more cohesive. As well as the wax they’ve also chucked in the ‘For The Kids – By The Kids’ CD (originally co-released by Per Koro and Geekscene back in 2004) as bunce and wrapped it up in a spiffy embossed sleeve “” extras that won’t necessarily sway you one way or the other if your opinion’s already, but make for a nice, well-rounded package if you’re a long-term fan or are just starting out and fancy getting to grips with what these long-running brutalisers have to offer.