Zeal & Ardor go avant-garde without hindering their hooks at electric London gig

“This is the last show of the tour,” Zeal & Ardor mainman Manuel Gagneux says onstage. “So we decided to make it a night to remember.” Let’s be honest though: this lot have never been something you’d easily forget.

Since 2016 debut Devil Is Fine went madly viral, this band have been defined by the catchy catch-all ‘black metal meets spirituals’. It wasn’t just a memorable and head-turning tag; it was an accurate one. Inspired by a racist 4chan comment, Gagneux had the unprecedented idea to mix snarling metal with crooning slave music, formulating a combo so unique and melodic that the whole world listened.

The same label still follows the project eight years later, but it’s become something Gagneux pushes against. Since 2020’s haunting, George Floyd-inspired EP, Wake Of A Nation , Zeal & Ardor have forayed into the spaces between soulful blues and ferocious heaviness. Last month’s album Greif made them harder to pigeonhole than ever, dabbling in outright synthy bits, pop-punk and other weird shit.

Tonight, at a rammed O2 Empire Shepherds Bush in West London, Zeal & Ardor double down on their line-blurring ambitions. The lights cut to black and swell again to the sound of Greif opener The Bird, The Lion And The Wildkin , which whistles a gentle, folky tune before receiving guitars on top. Wake Of A Nation follows: another short, slow burn that withholds the full fury the band are capable of. But then comes Götterdämmerung . Gagneux screams, the drums accelerate, and the moshpit finally swirls.

The remaining 17 songs are largely sourced from Greif and its 2022, self-titled predecessor . Their broadened scope – now well beyond full-throttle extremity, downtempo chants and little in the middle – makes for a night of stop-start energy. To My Ilk eschews distortion entirely, offering a two-minute jazz-lounge jam, whereas Run builds a bold industrial stomper around its howls of, “Run! Run! Run!”

What tethers it all together, though, is that Gagneux knows how to write a fucking hook. Such early-days reliables as Devil Is Fine and Ship On Fire of course yield passionate reactions, but even Death To The Holy and Golden Liar , at only two years old, seem to have drilled their choruses into fans’ brains. The pit may take breaks, but the singalongs seldom do, especially as Zeal & Ardor offer just the briefest of between-song banter and keep playing bangers.

By the end of the night, which crescendos with the anthemic I Caught You into the incensed Clawing Out , ‘black metal meets spirituals’ feels well and truly in the rear-view mirror. Zeal & Ardor’s talents can’t be summarised by a handful of words anymore. They’re a distinct, weird, wonderful force, able to experiment without compromising the art of songwriting. This evening will be well remembered indeed.

Zeal & Ardor setlist: O2 Empire Shepherds Bush, London – September 22, 2024

The Bird, The Lion And The Wildkin
Wake Of A Nation
Götterdämmerung
Ship On Fire
Erase
Gravedigger’s Chant
Tuskegee
Blood In The River
Kilonova
Run
Golden Liar
Sugarcoat
Death To The Holy
To My Ilk
Feed The Machine
Devil Is Fine

Encore:
Trust No One
Built On Ashes
I Caught You
Clawing Out