Zetra

Spectres have been stirring in the shadows for years now.

Dark eyes watching from pallid faces. Siren songs calling to lost souls. In the blackest corners of the UK underground, a name whispered relentlessly amongst the faithful, first with curiosity, then soul-shuddering awe: Zetra. “Zetra is another place, on another plane,” whisper the enigmatic duo. “In that world, we have always believed in fatalistic truth. Bad things happen. Stoically, we accept they happen for a reason. Lately, though, the poison of falsehood has been introduced. The clear path from birth to death has been clouded. So we left our plane to come to yours – a place immersed in the shades of grey between truth and lies – to learn how to save our home from the deceptions strangling it.” That beauty burns sonically, too. Two travellers alone with only synths, guitar and drum-machine to compose, they could sound skeletal, but instead flesh-out the metallic bones of early work with the electronic new-wave of Gary Numan and Pet Shop Boys and dreamy, droning guitars that hark to heroes like Slowdive and Sonic Youth as well as dark contemporaries Deafheaven and Alcest. Acolytes to spread the word are lining up. Having already shared their winding road with heavyweights like Creeper and Godflesh, VV and SKYND big name fans haven’t been hard to find. Unto Others’ Gabriel Franco (Moonfall), Svalbard’s Serena Cherry (Starfall) and Sólveig Matthildur Kristjánsdóttir from Iceland’s Kælan Mikla (Shatter The Mountain) enhance, but incorporate seamlessly on these recordings. But none are as important as the legions of fans Zetra are yet to reach with a dark gospel still unpicking all manner of psychological knots and stark home truths. Across ten tracks that traverse – and ultimately transcend – the soundscapes of alt. and shoegaze, goth and metal, Zetra’s Travellers chronicle their coming-to-terms with humanity’s flexible narratives and compromised morality on this striking, self-titled debut. It may be hard to navigate those shades of grey, but there is untold beauty to be mined amidst the agony and anarchy. Is it a manifesto? A roadmap to salvation? Or just the document of an epic journey filled with more questions than answers? It’s all of those things and more. Profound pleasure lies in peeling back its countless layers…