Zifir - "Kingdom of Nothingness" (Duplicate Records, 2017)

Band: Zifir
Title: Kingdom of Nothingness
Genre: Black Metal
Year: 22th September 2017
Time: 50 min
Rating: 84/100












In according to Metal-Archives, ˂˂ Zifir is the Persian-originated word for "tar", which finds its use in "zifiri karanlık", an idiom corresponding to "utter darkness ˃˃. In other words, Zifir is a moniker very fit for a Turkish duo that released in 2017 an outstanding third album through the small Norwegian label Duplicate Records. Prepare to be deathly embraced by a surprising little black metal gem!

"Kingdom of Nothingness" is a 50-minute journey where you'll find a black metal surely rooted in the '90s but expressing, at the same time, a personal style. First of all, the atmosphere into this album is incredibly hypnotizing, a sensation especially created by the minimalistic and cold guitars. Secondly, the pace of the songs is never really fast nor violent since the lack of blast-beats into them, also because the drummer Nursuz often love to play haunting slow tempos with the result that numbers like "769" and "The Ascension" have doomish tunes.

But the most interesting features comes from the fact that Zifir are able to spew forth some strange solutions like evocative and "religious" clean vocals, crazy drum patterns (as in "Diabolis Praescriptum"), and without forgetting bizzarre episodes such as "Abet" (that's really fukken estranging!) or the same "The Ascension" (where the vocals are really absurd!). Additionally, many of these strange solutions are useful to give to the music some dark and ritualistic vibes also with vaguely oriental touches. So, the atmosphere into this album isn't only hypnotizing but also cold, sick and fukken dark!

To end this review, "Kingdom of Nothingness" is very interesting and full of creativity, showing effective features in all the 13 songs, included the last episode "Evoke" which is strangely melodic for the usual standards of Zifir. Probably, my favorite song is "As Weak as your God", very sick and chaotic! Instead, I think that, without taking anything away from Onur Önok (who founded Zifir in the now far 2006 along with Onur Sülen, that left them in 2011), the real point of force of this Turkish creature is represented by Nursuz (that joined the band in 2008 but, before that, they used a drum-machine) due to his crazy drumming. Maybe, the album needed a little bit of fast tempos but this isn't a problem. If anything, the real problem is that you can risk to be seriously addicted by listening again and again this delirium called "Kingdom of Nothingness"!

P.S. As you can read through their FB page, Zifir are now preparing their 4th full-lenght album that will consist of 6 songs.

Tracklist:

1 - Befog
2 - The Relief in Disbelief
3 - Mina
4 - 769
5 - Diabolis Praescriptum
6 - Common Insanity
7 - A State of Chaos
8 - As Weak as Your God
9 - Abet
10 - Echoes from Nowhere
11 - The Ascension
12 - A Crowded Nothingness
13 - Evoke

Line-up:

Onur Önok - vocals/guitars/bass
Nursuz - drums

FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/zifirband
BandCamp: https://zifir.bandcamp.com/
Duplicate Records: http://www.duplicate-records.com/