Review: Die Laughing. by ZOMBIESHARK! released via Theoria

Being in the social media space of DIY is interesting as a lot of the relationships I have with certain bands is strictly tangential. From tours to in-scene influence I have heard the name ZOMBIESHARK! quite a bit but haven’t actually listened to any of their music until taking a chance on this album. 

Something I respect immediately is a fair balance between several different genres of heavy music, all of which make up the greater sphere of the genre right now. You have the pitch shifted and all over the place synth sounds of cybergrind. There’s wild and hysterical screams and riffs from chaotic metalcore. All of this is in good balance, nothing is oversaturated.


Where I start to lose interest in ZOMBIESHARK! is it all moves so fast I don’t feel like I have much time to enjoy or appreciate an idea as it all sort of blends together. They try so many things and cram so many sounds into such short parts and it all ends up feeling like iterations of the same sound. This isn’t to say there are zero dips or risks. “Loxosceles on the Isosceles” has an alarm leading into a cyber spiral, which is an effective songwriting technique but leaves very little time to even recognize what’s happening. There is a jazz transition on “Procedurally Generated Bear Traps” I’m not sure plays out as it’s so short you could sneeze and miss it. “Put Your Glasses On, Nothing Can be Wrong” is an interesting shift in sound but only lasts about a verse. As a result of all of this I lose momentum on an engagement level. Passively I think all of this sounds good, sitting here picking the details apart? It all sort of loses meaning.


I don’t think Die Laughing. is a bad record and I think there’s some good stuff going on here. I think ZOMBIESHARK! as an artist is sort of afraid to take risks and I’d like to see a version of them presented on a future project where they dive deep into the ideas they’re presenting every so often on this record.

Our score of Die Laughing. is 7/10

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