#devil is fine

"Devil is Fine" / Zeal and Ardor

Year: 2017

Country: 🇨🇭 / 🇺🇸 (Switzerland / US)

Genre: Metal / Black Metal / Soul

"Devil is Fine", Zeal & Ardor's debut, is an album unlike anything else as it conjures up an unthinkable mix: 19th century black spirituals with black metal, electronica, noise and industrial elements. The result is a disturbing, powerful and profoundly original work. The conceptual premise that gives rise to the album is provocative: what if African slaves in the United States had not embraced Christianity, but instead embraced the devil as a figure of resistance? This musical uchronia is embodied in songs like "Devil is Fine", which opens the album with a spiritual chant deformed by synthesizers and distortion, immediately establishing a dark but seductive atmosphere. Although its duration is short (barely 25 minutes), this album leaves an intense mark. It's an album that cannot be listened to comfortably: it questions, shakes, makes you uncomfortable. And that's precisely what makes it so relevant.

8. name an artist/band that isn’t touring at the moment who you’d really like to see in concert

Paysage d'Hiver, though I don't think he ever tours. I'd die for a frozen Alpine version of Fire in the Mountains with PdH there though. For a band that does actually tour and just isn't doing so now, I'd love to see Misþyrming!

12. if you could hear any album performed live in its entirety, which would it be?

Panihida by Batushka (already got Litourgiya, the greatest album ever made, live before the split)

For a non-Batushka answer, since that's a given, Pale Folklore by Agalloch

27. name a song that you wish was longer

The titular & opening track from Zeal & Ardor's 2017 album Devil is Fine.