Zaraza (from

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* * * Old Serbian (disambiguat ...

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") is a Canadian

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industrial Industrial may refer to: Industry * Industrial archaeology, the study of the history of the industry * Industrial engineering, engineering dealing with the optimization of complex industrial processes or systems * Industrial city, a city dominate ...

funeral doom Doom metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much "thicker" or "heavier" sound than other heavy metal genres.K. Kahn-Harris, ''Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge'' ...

band from

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, Canada.

Biography

Formed in early 1993, Zaraza was born out of a meeting between newly arrived

immigrant Jacek (The DoomHammer) Furmankiewicz and local Montreal industrial/

noise Noise is unwanted sound considered unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference arise ...

artist Brian Meagher performing as Brian Damage (who would later adopt the Slavic name Grzegorz Haus ov Doom), with the object of fully integrating the extremes of

doom Doom is another name for damnation. Doom may also refer to: People * Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed * Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist * Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher * L ...

death metal Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking; deep growling vocals; aggressive, powerful drumming, feat ...

with

. At the beginning it was intended to be a

grindcore Grindcore is an extreme fusion genre of heavy metal and hardcore punk that originated in the mid-1980s, drawing inspiration from abrasive-sounding musical styles, such as thrashcore, crust punk, hardcore punk, extreme metal, and industrial. G ...

-oriented project, but they soon decided on a more doomy edge, combined with a bombastic symphonic industrial feel. Due to the largely

sampler Sampler may refer to: * Sampler (signal), a digital signal processing device that converts a continuous signal to a discrete signal * Sampler (needlework), a handstitched piece of embroidery used to demonstrate skill in needlework * Sampler (surna ...

-oriented nature of Zaraza's music, the band very rarely performed live. Its best-known live show was during a special edition of the Montreal industrial show ''Late Night Atrocity Exhibition''. That night, in order to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the first concert of

Laibach Laibach () is a Slovenian avant-garde music group associated with the industrial, martial, and neo-classical genres. Formed in the mining town of Trbovlje (at the time in Yugoslavia) in 1980, Laibach represents the musical wing of the Neue Slo ...

, whose early albums (from the 1980s) the band highly revered, Zaraza performed four covers: "Vier Personen," "Leben Tod," "Krvava Gruda Plodna Zemlja," and "Nova Akropola."

Initial period (1993-2005)

After releasing their first demo, ''Life Is Death Postponed'', in 1995, received positively in the underground, Zaraza released its debut CD, ''Slavic Blasphemy'', through the Ottawa-based Musicus Phycus label. It was released in 1997 and gathered a large number of positive reviews, and was listed as one of the Top 10 albums of 1998 by Gino Filicetti of Chronicles of Chaos webzine. In 1999 the band recorded their second CD, ''No Paradise To Lose'', which was supposed to include a bonus EP with three

covers. However, lack of satisfaction with the final sound quality of the mixing process led to a postponement of the album. All the original recordings were discarded and the resulting self-disgust resulted in the band going on hiatus till early 2002. The same year the band performed its one and only "true" live show by opening up for

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and

Merzbow is a Japanese noise project started in 1979 by , best known for a style of harsh, confrontational noise. Since 1980, Akita has released over 400 recordings and has collaborated with various artists. The name Merzbow comes from the German dada ...

in Ottawa, Canada. In 2002, Zaraza restarted its activities and tackled again the task of re-recording and remixing the entire ''No Paradise To Lose'' album from scratch. In November 2003, ''No Paradise To Lose'' was finally released, containing 50 minutes of experimental industrial doom death metal, to critical acclaim. The first 50 copies of the album sold also included a four-track single of Laibach covers, "Montrealska Akropola ribute to Laibach. The band disbanded in July 2006 and released all their albums via the

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Reforming (2015–present)

In 2015, the band re-united and decided to work on a new album. The third album ''Spasms of Rebirth'', was released on March 4, 2017 via the band's

Bandcamp Bandcamp is an American online audio distribution platform founded in 2007 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with headquarters in Oakland, California, US. On March 2, 2022, Bandcamp ...

site. The album received a 9/10 rating in a doom-metal.com review.

Members

* Jacek (The DoomHammer) –

lead vocals The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of t ...

, drum machine, samplers,

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

* Brian Damage (aka Grzegorz Haus ov Doom) – operatic vocals, samplers, keyboards

Discography

* ''Life is Death Postponed'' (Demo, 1995) * ''Slavic Blasphemy'' (CD, 1997) * ''No Paradise to Lose'' (CD, Total Zero Records, 2003) * ''Montrealska Akropola – A Tribute to Laibach'' (Single, Total Zero Records, 2003) * ''Life Is Death Postponed'' (2004,

CD-R CD-R (Compact disc-recordable) is a digital optical disc storage format. A CD-R disc is a compact disc that can be written once and read arbitrarily many times. CD-R discs (CD-Rs) are readable by most CD readers manufactured prior to the in ...

reissue with bonus tracks) * ''Spasms of Rebirth'' (Digital &

, 2017)

References

External links

"Slavic Blasphemy"
CD available for download in

FLAC FLAC (; Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference software p ...

Ogg Vorbis Vorbis is a free and open-source software project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The project produces an audio coding format and software reference encoder/decoder (codec) for lossy audio compression. Vorbis is most commonly used in conjun ...

and

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

formats
"No Paradise to Lose"
CD available for download in

and

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Zaraza Musical groups established in 1993 Musical groups disestablished in 2006 Musical groups from Montreal Canadian doom metal musical groups Canadian musical duos