Zyklon - World ov Worms (2001)

I recall 2001 being a fairly solid year for heavy metal with both new and old bands releasing quality material, but all these years later the one album from '01 that has stuck with me the most is Zyklon's massively crushingly apocalyptically charged debut, 'World ov Worms.'

Zyklon is (or was) the brainchild of one Tomas "Samoth" Haugen who formed the band in 1995 under the name Zyklon-B with an all-star line-up (Ihsahn, Frost and Aldrahn accompanied him) but after releasing the, 'Blood Must Be Shed' EP that same year the band was sacked and eventually reformed with an entirely new line-up in '98 under the shortened Zyklon moniker.

For the debut Samoth was joined by drummer and Emperor band mate Trym Torson as well as guitarist Destructhor (Myrkskog), bassist Secthdamon (Myrkskog) and vocalist Daemon (Limbonic Art).

The music itself is blistering fast and technically amazing blackened death metal with minor industrial characteristics that basically showed influences from all of their current bands. The lead off track, 'Hammer Revelation' has over the past ten years become truly one of my favorite songs with its relentless blasting machinegunnary drumwork and intense Morbid Angel-ish guitar work and utterly insane but highly impressive shrieks, roars, growls and what not from the throat of Daemon. You've got to love the intensity and honestly the catchiness of 'Deduced to Overkill' as well 'Chaos Deathcult' makes great use of the industrial/ambient influences with a chill out part at the end that features heavy electronics, samples and a spoken segment from Garm (Ulver). Oh, and how I fucking love, 'Worm World' with those keyboards that sound like they were taken straight out of, 'In a Nightside Eclipse' and 'Transcendental War - Battle Between Gods' is one of the most epic death metal songs you'll ever hear and its made only better with the inclusion of Garm's cleanly sung vocals too. Plenty of love for all of the other songs as well and this is at least for me one of those records to put on when I need to wake myself up, because shortly after it erupts I'm headbanging for the next forty one minutes, everytime!

The production of the album is crisp, clean and perfectly done for this sort of music and I also have to point out that the artwork, photos and layout is highly impressive and the lyrically tales of misanthropy, philosophy and anti-religion penned by then still jail bound friend, Bård "Faust" Eithun are absolutely stunning.

Before dissolving in 2010 Zyklon went on to record two more albums, but they completely lacked the focus and song writing talent of this debut and for whatever reason they completely sacrificed their identity to be an almost entirely pure Morbid Angel clone. Daemon also quit after this album and Secthdamon stepped up to the mic, but he proved to be just awful in his efforts. Nowadays, Samoth is rocking out in his new band, The Wretched End, but I haven't got my hands on this album just yet, though I'm curious.