Little over a year ago, I reviewed the Zonaria’s album Infamy And The Breed. It soon became their absolute break-through in Europe. The young Swedes even got to do a European tour with Pain and are already booked for Vader's upcoming 25th anniversary tour. Continuing to follow the path of bands like Hypocrisy and Dimmu Borgir, Zonaria might very well become Sweden’s next metal hype.

That being said, I gotta admit I’m not that much of a Dimmu Borgir fan. Which bothers me on this album, as well as with DB, are the keyboard/synth parts. It has really become abundant on this new Zonaria album, whereas on their previous album the same parts were there, but just took more of a background part in the overall mix. I liked that better but still, The Cancer Empire isn’t exactly something to complain about.

The band shows it’s still able to create a great wall of grooving death metal sound. Actually it shows they’ve even grown more mature. The songs are well arranged and it seems that this album deserved just the right amount of attention it needed to kick you in the face the way it does now. Although one might complain about the production being a little too slick here and there. But then again, isn’t that just a product of nowadays modern (melodic) metal?

Also some songs contain black metal influences. This causes quite a brutal mix on the album and I don’t think you’ll easily be bored by this album. I guess people into this kind of metal already found their way to Zonaria, if not, they will soon do so. I liked their previous album a little better, but that’s just a matter of personal taste. The Cancer Empire is nothing entirely new to the metal scene, yet it’s an above average piece of metal that’s at least worth a try.