Zonaria - Rendered In Vain

*=Staff's pick	Rendered In Vain Attending Annihilation Ravage The Breed

Genre	Melodic Death Metal	Simon Berglund	Vocals
Tracks	3	Simon Berglund	Guitar
Runningtime	12 Min.	Emil Nyström	Guitar
Label		Emanuel Isaksson	Bass
Release	June 2006	Jerry Ekman	Drums
Country	Sweden	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Hypocrisy, Scar Symmetry, Arise

The band Zonaria hails from Umeå in the very north of Sweden and with Rendered In Vain they put out their second demo. In addition, what is something worth to mention apart from their band qualities, is that Jonas Kjellgren of Scar Symmetry fame has been in charge of mixing this demo.
Even though Zonaria has yet to achieve a record deal, they have already been on the road as support to Impaled Nazarene for two weeks on their European tour in April.

The first of the three tracks is also the title track; Rendered In Vain is a powerful track with a melodic approach and melodic riffing with shifts in the tempo. More than once I think of Hypocrisy when I listen to this track, and if you were to remove the supportive melodic riffing it would be plain and simple, yet very good, death metal. Not a standout track but still qualitative and it shows that Zonaria has technical as well as melodic skills.

Attending Annihilation has still much of a Hypocrisy feeling in it and is a more mature and further a more balanced track. In the chorus the tempo is slowed down to mid-tempo and features clean vocals from Scar Symmetry vocalist Christian Älvestam and no wonder this song also has a touch of Scar Symmetry besides the Hypocrisy influence. The fat and brutal riffs that carry the song forward is very much to my liking here. The final track Ravage The Breed might be just one among others in this genre but the aggressive touch and the darker side it has compared to the other songs on the demo makes me favour this one for sure. The song is varied in tempo and with the keyboard arrangements supporting the song when it goes at full speed it creates a slightly reminiscent touch of Dimmu Borgir. This track is the adrenaline riser.

The demo Rendered In Vain contains three very solid tracks of good quality, although nothing that goes over the top but it hovers well above the average mark. The sound quality does not give away this as a demo and there is not much to complain about here really. My only remark is that the otherwise good growls is just a tiny bit too pale, or perhaps thin is a better word? Just a pinch darker on the voice and little more balls put in to it and the growls would have been preferable.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
7	6	8

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Thomas