{"id":12834,"date":"2013-04-08T00:00:05","date_gmt":"2013-04-08T00:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=12834"},"modified":"2013-07-09T11:50:27","modified_gmt":"2013-07-09T11:50:27","slug":"album-review-zombiefication-at-the-caves-of-eternal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-zombiefication-at-the-caves-of-eternal\/","title":{"rendered":"ZOMBIEFICATION – At The Caves Of Eternal (2013) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

ZOMBIEFICATION
At The Caves Of Eternal<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nPulverised (2013)<\/span>
Rating: 6\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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At the caves of eternal what, I ask myself? Okay, so I\u2019m being picky about the album title, but it\u2019s no surprise to see a band with such a moniker. After all, zombies have been in vogue for a few years now, what with the popularity of certain console games, movies and television series\u2019.<\/p>\n

Anyway, Zombiefication are a bunch of Mexican death metallers who only have a handful of subjects on their mind \u2013 death, destruction and of course, lashings of gore. Before I press on, it\u2019s important not to confuse these asylum escapees with an older Italian band, who dropped the \u201ce\u201d in their name. And it\u2019s also worth noting that At The Caves Of Eternal<\/em> is the Mexican\u2019s second full-length opus, following on from 2010\u2019s Midnight Stench<\/em> debut and the 2012 Reaper\u2019s Consecration<\/em> EP.<\/p>\n

As expected, Zombiefication do play slightly tongue-in-cheek splatter metal, which, for the most part, is quite easy on the ears, mainly due to the fact that they employ a sound that has more in common with old school Swedish death metal \u2013 think Grave and the likes. It\u2019s often no thrills death metal with a few sprigs of blackened thrash thrown in. And the vocals of the mysteriously named Mr. Hitchcock are certainly of the throaty variety rather than intolerable bellows.<\/p>\n

Zombiefication are in fact a two-piece, but you wouldn\u2019t think so when you hear this blood-soaked racket. The drums are head-crushing throughout, and Mr. Hitchcock\u2019s sidekick, the equally mysterious Mr. Jacko, has a lot to answer for with that rib-cracking bass and those often devastating guitars which fluctuate between frenzied thrash assault and doom-laden chainsaw chug.<\/p>\n

The opening title track is very much an abrasive affair, combining the gloomy quality of Autopsy with that familiar Entombed-style bark. Sadly, the duo\u2019s inability to wrench themselves away from the Swedish sound may grate on some a little.<\/p>\n

\u2018Disembodied Souls\u2019 lacks any identity with its pace, as does the equally rampant mass murdering structure of \u2018Soul Collector\u2019, but the black metal strains of \u2018In The Mist\u2019 and the gruelling slop of \u2018Passage Of Darkness\u2019 are certainly the album\u2019s highest points. I only wish the gruesome twosome could concentrate more on the doomier aspects which they achieve on the gloomy \u2018Passage…\u2019; it\u2019s easily the most atmospheric and effective track on the album, and comes complete with harsher vocals and Autopsy-styled melancholy. But while \u2018In The Gallery Of Laments\u2019 features an absolutely kick-ass drum, Zombiefication resort all too quickly back to that Swedish sound with the pacey \u2018The Crypt\u2019 and rather icy fingers of \u2018In The Shadowed Garden\u2019.<\/p>\n

Although At The Caves Of Eternal<\/em> makes for an enjoyable listen, the nine tracks on offer don\u2019t really do enough to make the band stand out. Bands adopting that Swedish sound are too many at the moment, which can be rather sickly when you consider the amount of actual good Swedish bands doing the rounds.<\/p>\n

The closing track, \u2018Slaves Whisper Your Name\u2019, should go a long way in confirming my initial fears that Zombiefication need to find their own identity, and until they do they\u2019ll be just another zombie in that undead crowd.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ZOMBIEFICATIONAt The Caves Of Eternal Pulverised (2013)Rating: 6\/10 At the caves of eternal what, I ask myself? Okay, so I\u2019m being picky about the album title, but it\u2019s no surprise to see a band with such a moniker. After all, zombies have been in vogue for a few years now, what with the popularity of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,629],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-zombiefication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12834"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18734,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12834\/revisions\/18734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}