Darkest Heavy: Remembering Z.O.E.

Osaka’s Z.O.E. boasted members of some of Japan’s best crustcore bands, but reveled in blatant unoriginality in mining the AMEBIX field for everything it could possibly be worth. They formed as a bedroom band by ex-GLOOM guitarist Taki in 1997, acquiring the drumming services of Takayama from FRAMTID four years later. Z.O.E. issued The Beginning as a CD-R demo in 2002, attracting attention from fans of Japan’s “crasher crust” scene for its painstaking attention to detail—these four songs sound dead on like AMEBIX outtakes if not for Taki’s howling vocals. “Be Celled & Be Chain of Master” steals the riff from “Drink & Be Merry” outright while the other songs are only somewhat less offensive in their thievery. Z.O.E. followed up with the instrumental “Spere Alive” on The Darkest 4, a compilation tape also featuring fellow Japanese crustys EFFIGY, ACROSTIX, and the amusingly named DISTURD.

Crust War originally intended to release 2003’s From Hell EP as a split with the like-

minded EFFIGY. Both bands even recorded title tracks for the concept, with Z.O.E. writing “From Hell (Ice Devil)” as a companion piece to EFFIGY’s “From Hell (Summer Devil).” Crust War simply released both as separate records instead. From Hell is the band’s best example of their “darkest heavy” sound; the long title track builds to a particularly nice crusty crescendo. “Destroyer” gets more to the point while “Spider” fades out after about a minute as something of a teaser track.

The Last Axe Beat re-records all four tracks from The Beginning and adds two new songs plus “Spider” in full. Z.O.E. relentlessly references AMEBIX and ZYGOTE throughout; it is almost more than one can handle by the album’s end.

Although the songs are appropriately loud and heavy, The Last Axe Beat misses the dynamics that Z.O.E.’s favorite band established with both their songwriting and presentation. Z.O.E. would then cover “The Power Remains” and “Winter” on MCR Company’s Amebix Japan: A Tribute to Amebix compilation (a dream come true, I’m sure) and also re-recorded “New World” and “Zygospore” for the Konton Damaging Ear Massacre compilation released by Crust War in 2005.

How did Z.O.E. manage to get away with such a flagrantly imitative approach? I do not know myself; I am still trying to figure it out over fifteen years later as I still enjoy these recordings on some level.

SEE ALSO: Defector, Ferocious X, Framtid, Gloom, War Cry.