Zeal & Ardor x Carpenter Brut’s Devil is Fine: Death Metal meets Gospel

I am continuing to focus on scary music for Halloween season. Last week we dipped into hip hop and now we are back to metal. I have found a band that is going to live rent free in my head because I cannot get enough. That band is Zeal & Ardor. This is essentially the brain child of Manuel Gagneux who is Swiss born to a Swiss father and an African-American mother. So, his musical environment was full of metal and African folk / slave songs and gospels. He thought it would be creatively interesting to blend African folk and gospel with black metal…the result is like nothing I have ever heard. Electro metal magician Carpenter Brut loved it as well and has now teamed up with Zeal & Ardor to remix their biggest track Devil is Fine. What better way to celebrate Halloween than a track about the devil.

The original Devil Is Fine was released in 2018 and is a traditional African slave chain gang track with the vocals way up in the mix and the occasional metal burst here and there. This blending of historical accounts of violence with modern metal is thematically complex and rich…which we will get to later. Carpenter Brut keeps that emotionally powerful vocal, but adds layers of electro texture and walls of metal. Musically the track builds with a modern electro techo metal feel…think Health…with tons of warmth and texture. Slowly the track builds to a full on wall of metal that would make Nine Inch Nails blush. It’s industrial metal faster than the speed of sound that puts you over the edge and won’t let go. I think if the track started with this sonic onslaught it might be too much, but the build sneaks up on you and by the time everything goes to 11 you are fully on board.

The vocal is what really carries the track. The raw brutality and energy behind Manuel’s vocal grabs you. Themes of race, spirituality, violence and oppression swirl around and demand attention. The fact that Manuel is mashing up traditionally African music genres and traditions with a genre usually associated with white men is not lost on the audience. I think this contrast heightens the themes violence and injustice at the heart of many African folk songs. It gives the audience an opportunity to look at African slave folk in a new context, which allows the themes to really come through. The cover itself is of Robert Smalls who freed himself from slavery, stole a Confederate ship, freed others from slavery and ultimately served in the Navy and congress. Smalls’ revolutionary attitude is throughout Manuel’s music as he blends the violent racial injustices of slavery with modern day violent marginalisation. Like most music worth your time, Manuel’s art is provocative, layered, rebellious and has something to say.

Manuel is really onto something here. Metal has long been the domain of straight white male bands, so anything that shakes that up is great for the genre. As more African-American, women and LGBTQIA+ led bands break into the genre, the healthier metal will be in the long run. If metal remained a predominantly straight white male genre, it would become stagnant and die. Bands like Zeal & Ardor keeps the genre alive and brings new fans into metal.

Listen to The Devil is Fine