In a short handful of years, Manuel Gagneux has firmly established Zeal & Ardor as one of heavy music's most intriguing acts; fusing African American spiritual dirges with incendiary black metal overtones, the project earned impressive amounts of acclaim and attention for their first two records, Devil Is Fine and Stranger Fruit , released in 2016 and 2018 respectively. While working on album three the world was plunged into a raging pandemic and, in the U.S., the Black Lives Matter movement was thrust to the forefront of discussion after yet another tragic murder of a Black man by police. In the fall of 2020, Zeal & Ardor dropped Wake of a Nation , a brief EP in lieu of the third album instead representing an immediate response to the events surrounding George Floyd's death. It also represented a stylistic contrast from previous material by rooting its themes in current events rather than recalling the dark era of slavery. It also featured Vigil , an utterly crushin...
SOMEHOW STILL A THING