Yeah another band name that requires some practise to pronounce. Zrat….. Zarthus…….. Zarathustra! Zarathustra was founded in 1996 and the name refers to a character of Friedrich Nietschze. It is also the name of a Persian prophet. In 1997 the 1^st demo was recorded and now they’ve released their 3^rd album called In Hora Mortis.

 

Zarathustra plays some very strong melodic black metal. Nice technical guitar licks, sharp riffs and some aggressive screams. The first bands that came up were Dissection and Naglfar. But the overall feeling is far more sinister. The guitar sound is colder, which fits the music very well. The songs are well composed with enough variety to hold my attention, mostly that is, some parts could have been a little shorter. Especially the slower parts have that hypnotising effect that drag you in their evil world of damnation, I really like that.

 

My favourite song of this album is ‘Crown Of Creation’. It has that nice, cold intro, that drags you into the deep, and at the moment you’ve arrived, hell breaks loose with some awesome hypnotic riffs on double bass drumming. Then it goes back to some slower parts and up it goes again, and so on, but always with some nice refreshing riffs, that all fit together very well. The riffs are all different, but they all have the same ‘theme’.

 

The choice for this production was a good one in my opinion, it really gives the songs the right sound and feeling. The mix of the instruments and the vocals are well balanced. And I almost forgot about the artwork, which is really great if you ask me. This is a very nice addition to the black metal collection.