Zeal & Ardor at the crescent ballroom Phoenix AZ 12/15/2024
Zeal & Ardor are one of the generational-type bands that only come around so often. Their unique sound blends African-American slave songs and spirituals with black metal. In 2017, when I originally came cross “Devil is Fine,” I was instantly hooked and left with wanting more. At the time, that was the only song I could find on Spotify. Then, in 2018 I was hanging with a longtime friend when he suggested I check out this band he recently started listing to. He couldn’t really explain the sound, and told me that I’d just have to listen. It happened to be Zeal & Ardor, and I was beyond ecstatic that someone that I knew discovered and loved them too. Four full length albums and one live album later, they worked their way through the trenches and climbed to the top of the Metal mountain!
Gaerea, who opened the show, always puts on one amazing set with lead singer Guilherme Henriques slithering their way around the stage. Going from melodic black metal to traditional black metal, seeing them live is an experience in and of itself. They have a strong, dark, and magnetic presence on stage that pulls you in and doesn’t let go until the final note stops ringing from the amps.
Zeal & Ardor opened up the show with “Wake of a Nation” to get the crowds blood pumping. Then they instantly went into “Götterdämmerung”, a crushing song which had the entire venue head banging. From the couple of times I’ve seen Zeal & Ardor, it was was definitely nice to see that their stage production become stepped-up a couple of notches. Having their giant, iconic logo in the background, with lights coming off of it and the numerous L.E.D. bean lights surrounding the band on stage, brought everything together. Manuel Gagneux is the type of singer to let his music do his talking; he doesn’t ever say much during the set (which isn’t a bad thing). He did, however, take a moment to thank everyone for coming out and “supporting this weird band”. With a haunting but soulful tone, hearing Manuel sing and watching Zeal live is like having an out-of-body experience. The passion and the soul, the pain and the suffering, all come pouring out from the stage and into the crowd.
Setlist:
Wake of a Nation
Götterdämmerung
Ship on Fire
Erase
Gravedigger’s Chant
Kilonova
Blood in the River
Run
Tuskegee
Golden Liar
Sugarcoat
Death to the Holy
To My Ilk
Feed the Machine
Devil Is Fine
Trust No One
Built on Ashes
I Caught You
Clawing Out
