Fair warning—there’s probably gonna be a fair bit of Ghost chat surrounding Zetra. Not because the two sound alike—they’re not dissimilar but whatever—but because of the way each presents in relation to metal at large. When speaking on an aesthetic removed from the sound, often associated with something heavier or more malevolent and played for pageantry, it’s inevitable. In the case of Zetra, the chains and corpse paint making up their dungeon synth drip rarely speak to a sound further inside softly-spoken goth-rock or even shoegaze. Just look at their old EP covers to see how insistently they’re flaunting the juxtaposition.
Of course, it goes without saying that aesthetic ideas can only carry an act so far. An interesting look might get people through the door, but something to show for it is more important. To go back to Ghost, they may have their own rabbit hole of lore for sycophants to dive into, but also purely great songs that work as unit-shifters and arena-fillers at face value, removed from all of that. Zetra, on the other hand, have a new album where each of the ten tracks functionally sounds the same.
The overall intent seems to rest in creating something more beguiling than straight anthemic; on here, Zetra seem less—for lack of a better term—parodical in their darkness. In the right situations, you could, in fact, envisage them letting loose into proper black-metal, thanks to universally cold mixes and tones, and the prominent foam of keys resting on every track. It’s a narrow breadth of sound that Zetra have, but can be potent when executed correctly. Just take the musclebound guitars and their own contrast with the spectral, gleaming synths, used as the basis for Zetra’s sound for a reason. As far as core ideas go—and when it’s blessed with some frankly beautiful production—there’s definitely something here.
But a few things about Zetra also feel…off. The one that’ll immediately leap out is the singing, where a presumed ethereal falsetto is promptly canned when vocalist Adam plays closer to shuffling shoegaze aloofness. (Side note: it’s kind of hilarious to see a band who look like this forgo kvlt sobriquets for just their Christian names.) Maybe that can work, but it’s also not nearly as immersive when it creates such prevalent holes to pick. Sacrifice is where that notion becomes its most obvious, right at the beginning when its blocky, brawny riff comes in and finds itself flanked by a bewilderingly impotent hoot of a vocal. Following on from that, it’s never a good thing when, vocally, Zetra only ever appear to either bad or outright ignorable.
To be fair, that’s not true of the album as a whole—it’s usually just the latter. Yeah, Zetra might be able to impress on principle, but ‘principle’ alone isn’t the flawless foundation they evidently want it to be. It’s what makes the album a fairly monotonous listen, and in shockingly plentiful capacities. For one, there isn’t a lot of form to keep Zetra’s songs steady, instead leaving them to drift and drizzle into each subsequent iteration of the same palette. Thus, the album runs together without much action taken to prevent it. At least black-metal and even dungeon synth proper have the promise of the sheerness of their pitch-black to fall back one when sameness lurks, as opposed to, effectively, a take a synthpop that throws out tightness or vibrancy by design. Perhaps it’s rather obvious that Zetra find their best footing when either dialling into their poppiest impulses (see the explicitly Ghost-ly cut Gaia), or throwing a new ingredient in that works simply by virtue of being different. If you remember Starfall at all, it’ll be for the additional screams from Svalbard’s Serena Cherry, nothing else.
All of that amounts to the exact reason why Zetra fail to hit—their own output might be the least consequential thing about them. If a germ of a thought of Zetra were to spark, it’d be about how they’re a pair of Immortal lookalikes first, and producers of memorable music a distant second. That’s even accounting for some genuinely cool ideas, and how this could be a legitimately awesome concept if utilised in the right way. Although the seeds of Zetra knowing what that is might begin to sprout, too often, this is an album that meanders and circles its own well of ideas to where they seem much more limited than they are. And that doesn’t help Zetra, who clearly want to be taken more seriously among rock and metal’s cavalcade of costumes. They’re not the same kind of novelty band as many of them—far from it—but they struggle to even stick out as far as one.
For fans of: Unto Others, Graywave, Sleep Token
‘Zetra’ by Zetra is out now on Nuclear Blast Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
