THE ZYGOMA DISPOSAL — The Forgotten (review)

THE ZYGOMA DISPOSAL — The Forgotten album cover

Album · 2013 · Mathcore

4/5 · 2018-09-23
siLLy puPPy

While the mathcore style of metal (a subgenre of metalcore, often referred to as noisecore or experimental metalcore) had its roots back to post-hardcore punk of the 80s with most notably Black Flag and Minutemen providing a unique inspiration in the polyrhtyms, dissonant riffs and complex rhythmic tempo changes, the sub really took off in the 90s with bands like Botch, Coalesce, Converge and The Dillinger Escape Plan added extreme metal elements and were leaders of this brutal and bombastic pack. The sub was fairly popular throughout the early 2000s with bands like Between The Buried And Me and Psyopus taking it to its logical conclusion by adding ridiculous layers of progressive complexities. The sub kind fizzled out with some of the bands dropping the math/metalcore aspects and focusing on just progressive metal.

Well, knocked out but not dead, the mathcore / metalcore style still inspired a many up and comers with its schizoid freneticism fueled by extreme metal bombast. Belgium’s THE ZYGOMA DISPOSAL didn’t want to accept that the party seemed to be over and nobody was dancing any more. Come 2010 this band would release a two-track EP titled “Flesh.Made.Void” but wouldn’t put out their debut album THE FORGOTTEN until 2013. Quite similar to the progressively infused metalcore antics of Between The Buried And Me’s colorful “Colors” era, THE ZYGOMA DISPOSAL turns out to be one of the genre’s best kept secrets with their exquisite talented musicianship as they schizophrenically zigzag through different soundscapes and tie them all together quite well.

The album is bookend by two completely non-metal tracks. “The Lost” is a lounge jazz opener that sounds more like something you’d hear at a speakeasy from the 20s that even has a trumpet in the mix. The finale “The Alone” is a mellow-rocker that slowly ratchets down the intensity into a mesmerizing cooling off period that attempts to pacify the listener after having been sonically assaulted. Everything in between though, is pure intensity! This actually begins at the final moments of “The Lost” which bursts into heavy rock elements before the next track “Minus Infinity” begins the mathcore assaults. Right from the getgo, bands like Dillinger Escape Plan and Between The Buried And Me certainly come to mind by THE ZYGOMA DISPOSAL have latched onto their own style of mixing the mathcore with disparate non-metal elements.

One of the strongest elements of THE ZYGOMA DISPOSAL are the excellent diversity of guitar riffs. With a mathcore tag, one can expect the usual frenetic schizoid million-mile-an-hour riff assaults whizzing up and down the scales with staggeringly complex time signature abuse, but guitarist Kenzo effortlessly scales the metal guitar with Deftones styled alternative metal riffing, swing jazz, or just plain old heavy metal. The band contrast the deafening orotundity with spaced out moments that uses piano, trumpets and horns to great effect. While the vocals are permanently set on aggro-over-the-top screaming like hell has taken over, there are creepy vocal samplings that pop up from time to time. While frenetic in nature, the music doesn’t always gallop as fast as humanly possible, but rather contrast within the dissonant metal phases is quite common as well. Tracks like “Grim Haven” are just completely unhinged and only for insane asylum dwellers!

Forget trying to find a physical copy of this one. They sold out the scant copies made a long time ago. This is pretty much a Bandcamp experience only but if you’re interesting in bands like Between The Buried And Me, The Dillinger Escape Plan or War From A Harlots Mouth with a penchant for jazz-influenced mathcore and outstanding turn at the drop of the hat changes, then THE ZYGOMA DISPOSAL is a band you should check out. BTW, the word ZYGOMA refers to a bone of the side of the face below the eye which forms part of the ZYGOMATIC arch and part of the orbit in mammals. Also known as malar bone. It’s sort of a roundabout nerdy way to explain what to expect here. A form of music so crushingly brutal that it’s like a punch to the face that DISPOSES of parts of your anatomy! While devastatingly bombastic, the thread that keeps THE FORGOTTEN together is it always retains a melodic thread stitched throughout.