One of the most fun things about Zorn is that you’re never exactly sure how deep you are supposed to dig. The other really fun thing about them is how much they RIP. And boy do they rip on their new EP, Endless Funeral.

Back to the first point- as before, the band likes to spin yarns about devils and demons and zombies and dark fantasy type things. Centerpiece track “The Drunken Demon’s Iron Keep” talks about crawling over foreign mountains and dropping down into hidden valleys to be confronted with satanic riddles. It’s all good fun horror, and perhaps like Rudimentary Peni, the band is able to craft exceptionally vivid pictures and spark your imagination with surprisingly few words. That is, every word counts here in creating chills and thrills. But to that end, I’m reminded of Led Zeppelin and their own Tolkein utilization- which I hope the band takes as a compliment… because Led Zep frikkin RULES. Here, similar to where Robert Plant would sing about Hobbits but he was actually talking about his own confusion in the 70s music industry, the band talks about being drawn to find evil in remote places and engaging with it, and not necessarily in a confrontational way. The question therein, is that “are these songs just about scary monsters… or are the metaphors for the human condition.” Self-destruction, and even KNOWLEDGABLE WILLFUL, self-destruction is still rampant in the punk scene and I do wonder if the band is making meta commentary and then covering it with heavy, thick fantasy veils. OR… is it the band has created an abstract canvas and what you conjure is more a reflection of the listener and not the artist? Either way, here the band has welded their own fantasy that allows room for the listener to engage, rather than simply consume. A lot of metal and power metal bands tell long winded tales that are basically just audio books with riffs, but here, Zorn in savvy enough to leave room for you… and room for fun.

And that goes to the second point. Zorn has traditionally juggled hardcore punk with gothic metal licks. Here, the hardcore aspect is tucked away and the band is going full on metal blast. “Dance of Madness” has ornate, almost operatic metal soaring int he instrumentation. Warpath fittingly has a berserker charge. The band has also increased their production level, so the record leans more towards classic ‘80s ,metal than grimy punk, or even black metal, records. The added clarity perhaps removes some of the cloudiness that made them seem so unknowable in the past, but it also lets you really grab onto the spiraling, spinning, twirling, smashing riffs and it gets the blood pumping.

Zorn is evolving and this quick taste shows they are getting more specific, more technical, and more assured. In fact, I think their own Led Zeppelin IV is right around the corner. What will Zorn’s “Stairway to Heaven” sound like?