Opposition Party - Zombified - [Pulverised Records]

2006-04-03

Opposition Party was the first punk band to come out of Singapore, about 19 years ago, and since then has managed to release various materials on various media forms; over the years some metal elements, mostly thrash-like ones, were added to their music – thus sounding like early Slayer or perhaps early Anthrax.

“Zombified” starts off appropriately with “Zombie”, directing the listener to the theme with the used before sentence “When there’s no more room in hell – the dead will walk the earth” (the artwork suggests the same amount of horror, displaying some disturbing images); this song opens the album well, with an oldschool-sounding slab of thrash.
Slayer floats to one’s mind in “Taking us for fools”, as well as here and there throughout the album – the main differences between the two are that Slayer sometimes chose to have slower and more powerful parts, as well as the complexity of the guitar work (there is only one Kerry King) and the vocals (same case as with guitar work – there is only one Tom Araya); but the most potent difference has to be the drumwork, which is mostly fitting to punk rather then thrash.

The main problem I have with this album is its sound. I’m not so sure how a non-balanced product is supposed to keep one listening to such pearls as “Ignorance”, “Brain Fucked” and “It’s Chaos”.

Overall, this is a pretty solid piece, with good bass lines and guitar riffs making it original within a style it isn’t so easy to be original in; it would please those who like this sort of cross between the styles on the bed of rugged-sleazy-crispy sound.

Ofer Vayner