Zombies Eat My Neighbours - S/T (Surrogate rec)

This band has already existed more than 10 years… But unfortunately they've remained almost unknown outside of Ukraine. For these years this band has suffered a lot, like any other band they've had a lot of line-up changes and trouble with labels. But finally, this year small diy label Surrogate Recordsmreleased both of their albums on one tape. This tape looks very simple, as I know these guys tried to make it look like a pirate tape (bootleg cassette), well they managed to do that (i`m pretty sure that cover art is stolen from the internet, hahaha. So, boys and girls, let's take a closer look at the result of 4 years of work…

First is the “Nameless” album. We are expecting 11 songs and about 20 minutes of interesting experimental stuff. The main feature of “ZEMN” is that fact that these guys don’t stop on any genre. These boys are mixing everything with everything. First of all I must admit good quality sound (okay it`s not a grind sound but it sounds good). This album is full of catchy rhythms, dense guitar sound with pretty metal taste, but sounds heavy (sometimes it reminds me of the sound of different Polish grind/death metal bands). The lyrics side is full of social themes…dirty society, money, lost generation, shitty system,etc. But the weakest is the drum parts. Cut and paste style noticeably spoils the impression. Also there is a number of unnecessary samples, vocal effects and backing vocals. I can’t say that this album has grind base, rather it`s some hardcore+thrash with little grind. But anyway this album has some interesting songs, so it is worth listening to at least once.

Okay, now is the last album (for the moment of course) – “Alive”. Everything starts with a “Doom” song. I guess, with this song, guys tried to create a dark atmosphere in the beginning of the album, but this venture has failed. The guitar sound ruined it with its midi tone (and that is fucking sad). But, the next few songs show to us that not everything is lost. Dirty and raw sound masked guitar and everything starts to sound pretty good. One more thing this album is the most Grind stuff these boys have recorded. There are a good number of blast beats, heavy bass shots and crazy screaming. I can say with confidence that this material is much better (with material but not with sound) than their previous stuff.
Rating: 7/10 Zombies Eat My Neighbours bc