Album Review: Zygnema – What Makes Us Human Is Obsolete

Zygnema at the Rolling Stone Metal Awards 2012

[easyreview cat1title = “What Makes Us Human Is Obsolete” cat1rating = 3.5 cat1detail = Self-released]

If you remember Mumbai metallers Zygnema for their riff-chugging, you’re not going to be disappointed in the least by their second full-length album What Makes Us Human Is Obsolete. The album is a follow-up to their 2010 album Born of Unity. It looks like four or five years is a good estimate for fans to wait on Indian metal bands to release new material as was the case with extreme metallers Demonic Resurrection’s The Demon King, hardcore band Scribe’s Hail Mogambo and Bhayanak Maut’s Man.

Zygnema uses instrumental ambient passages to divide their album into different sections, like the sound you heard on a lot of albums that released in 2014, with tracks such as “Embryo,” “Conflict” and “Misguided.” The rest of the time, though, the 11-track album is a monster trip as Zygnema leads listeners down an unending barrage of no-gimmicks groove metal. They smash through with their 2014 single “Shell Broken Hell Loose,” a perfect bridge from Born of Unity’s evident influence from American heavy metallers Pantera that’s got a lot more capital chaos a la Swedish metal band Meshuggah.

In addition to guitarist Sidharth Kadadi’s crunching work, bassist Leon Quadros massive-sounding grooves filling the sound impeccably, drummer Mayank Sharma gets blazing on songs like “Invidious I” and “Endangered.” Frontman Jimmy Bhore, of course, is the seething, snarling embodiment of an enraged mind on brilliantly technical tracks like “In-Kog” and “The Phoenix Effect” and the beatdown-heavy “Reform Rebirth.”

Sure, the themes about human apathy and the failings of the human race aren’t really new, but in metal, it’s only the rage that matters. Going by a band that commands its own army of fans and has conquered stages such as Wacken Open Air in Germany and Inferno Metal Festival in Norway, Zygnema has no problem starting a fire.

Key tracks: “Shell Broken Hell Loose,” “In-Kog,” “Reform Rebirth.”

Listen to “Shell Broken Hell Loose”

Outrage Festival present Zygnema and Passages perform at Cafe Out of the Box, New Delhi on June 17th, 2015. Entry: Free. Event details here.