Style: Power Metal, Progressive Metal, (vocals)
Recommended for fans of: NanowaR of Steel, Gloryhammer, Tenacious D
Country: Spain
Release date: 17 December 2024
My co-writer Chris is remarkably good at finding music of all kinds—he provided me with not one, but two of my favorite albums of the year and has sent plenty of interesting non-Subway recs my way. But what is most remarkable is how good he is at finding straight-up weird shit: just the other week, he jokingly dropped the latest Kaosis into the chat, to which I wasted no time assembling my review. Well, now, I’m back with more weird shit from the Chris archives. This time, we’re talking about Gigatron’s La Xusta de Zarathustra, an off-the-wall power metal concept album that you have to hear to believe.
Gigatron reside mostly in the world of power metal, but incorporate progressive undertones through their songwriting and mixing of genres: a song can go from traditional power metal into folk metal and finish off with an EDM passage as if these combinations were commonplace. La Xusta de Zarathustra also casts its net wide with respect to the vocals: many different styles are used here to represent different characters, whether it be standard high-energy power metal vocals, high-pitched falsettos, or the copious use of a zany ‘gremlin’ voice reminiscent of that near the end of Native Construct’s “Come Hell or High Water,” but even more shrill and gravelly. In line with the absurd mish-mash of genres and vocal styles is the album’s story, which involves a set of characters unmasking a series of conspiracies perpetrated by the bourgeoisie, whether it be vaccine microchips, AI bots designed to destroy all humans1, or a Moon colony populated entirely by Nazis. Gigatron took one look at moderation and said, “¡Vete a la mierda!” Thankfully, La Xusta has a fairly down-to-earth spoken word ending that involves the main characters having a feast in Valhalla with notable Norse figures Loki, Lemmy Kilmister, and King Kong.
One can quickly infer that Gigatron are happy to take the piss out of absolutely everything: they positively live for the bit, and will commit to it well beyond the point of enjoyability. La Xusta De Zarathustra is constantly looking for the next moment to interject with something wacky, marring the decent power metal that underlies these frustrating moments. Most songs have a solid foundation that is inevitably ruined by something decidedly obnoxious, whether it be the horrifically shrill flute of “¡Plandemia!,” the techno-glitches of “PutopIA,” or the zany gremlin vocals on virtually every track.2 For the first song and a half or so, it’s charming, but it quickly becomes way too much over La Xusta’s runtime. It makes me wonder, am I the joke here? Are Gigatron laughing at me knowing that I’m giving my undivided attention to a shrill goblin talking about Moon Nazis over dance metal beats?3
Despite wanting to tear my hair out on several occasions, it would be completely unfair for me to disregard La Xusta’s compelling instrumentation—though the songwriting is a little weird on tracks like “Distorsión” or “Apócrifus Yisus,” whose ending sections are vastly different than their beginnings, the actual riffage is quite well done. The former has energetic Stratovarius vibes and the latter indulges in satisfying folk ideas before launching into swaggering classic heavy metal. Opener “RulalaXusta” is also quite enjoyable as a folky introduction without too much chaos. Moreover, I have to admit there were sections that broke me down and actually did make me laugh: the inclusion of King Kong in the Valhalla feast caught me off guard, and something about the aggressive German over a cyber metal breakdown on “Nazis en la Luna” was, despite its abject tastelessness, quite silly in a way that I enjoyed.
Gigatron are distinctive power metal songwriters, but where they leave me wanting is in their lack of moderation—I’d like to think I’m not some stick-in-the-mud who wants everything to be brooding and serious, but it definitely grinds my gears when a band commits this hard to bits that weren’t that funny in the first place and subsequently beats them into oblivion. This rings especially true when the bits involve horrifically grating vocals, as much of La Xusta is plagued by. Were the songwriting cleaned up a bit and some balance brought to their execution, I would be much more receptive to La Xusta de Zarathustra, but as it is, I just can’t vibe with its overt wackiness. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to hurry to my goblin voice lessons.
Recommended tracks: RulalaXusta, Distorsión, Apócrifus Yisus
You may also like: Ethmebb, Cheeto’s Magazine, Toehider, Joey Frevola, Blake Hobson
Final verdict: 4/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
Gigatron is:
– Charly Glamour (vocals)
– Dave Demonio (guitars)
– Kike Turulo (bass)
– Johnny Cochambre (drums)
- Though, I’m pretty sure from the fact that the song in question is called “PutopIA” and that they add a disclaimer at the beginning of their music video that assures none of it is AI-generated that they take a strongly anti-AI stance, which is quite based of them. Y’all know how we feel about AI around here. ↩︎
- Though they taint most any song they appear on, they are a particular problem on “Distorsión,” “Nazis en la Luna,” and “¡Plandemia!” ↩︎
- What’s even more absurd is that they begin the song about moon nazis with a Wizard of Oz reference. ↩︎
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