✦✦✧✧ Both Z&A and The Armed pull from the same fount when they’re at their best: an uncanny and narrow intersection of ear-candy accessibility and undiluted acrimony. Ironically, the more this music hews to sounding overtly spiritual, the more boring it sounds. Fortunately, there are plenty of more subtle and intriguing tracks on the album (“Erase,” “Feed The Machine”, “Götterdämmerung”).

✦✧✧✧ This self-described “black metal meets negro spirituals” feels like a double case of smarmy cultural appropriation. At least it’s unusual.