Zinophrenia Zine #6 review

ZINOPHRENIA Zine #6 (France)
November 2009
54 pages A4 – French written
Doing a zine, most people have influences and usually at the beginning you copy a bit what others do around. On the case of Zinophrenia, I must say that Yves the editor has a personal way of doing a zine. When you quickly look through the pages you feel like this has been done in a hurry without care. In fact Zinophrenia zine is made of a particular care: the set-up is ultra basic (done through Words software of something alike) with very few images. Then the lay-out, sine cover, logo and everything's is done handwritten. His draws are very amateurish plus he adds several sentences & jokes here and there. Firstly he can seems completely childish but then it gives a particular tone to the rag, something off style.
About the zine content, Yves deals with different musical styles and featured cool interviews with RESISTANCE or SOL (a doom/death metal band from Denmark, not the nazi crap from Australia) and inties with average (not to say mediocre) bands like EMBRYONIC CELLS, JEFF/EMMOS /etc... and SEARING SKULL. Yves asks interesting questions or at least tries to deepen them and usually the bands play the game...you just have to be into their music I guess!
There are also a good bunch of reviews with demos, CD, tapes, vynils and zines covering many styles as well from death to black metal, maybe too much black metal stuff whose best fate is ending in the trash, but then again it's a matter of taste. Yves reviews a lot of underground releases and describes them straight to the essential.
The zine got a personal artcle dealing with love! Yeah I guess it's a pretty unusual theme in our hateful and intolerant underground. Yves dare to ask about love to Lord Azmoth, Jeff (EMMOS...), Mrikk (from FAZ), Kurgan & Luna from DUKE records (those freaks are definitely crazy!), Carl Warslaughter from BESTIAL MOCKERY, etc... some answers are really surprising.
To sum up, Zinophrenia Zine is a rather cool bunch of paper, not the kind of zine for everyone, but a personal one without great ambition: a FANzine!
The zine available for 2 euros.
Contact: Yves BLOUMENTZWEIG – 37 rue des Vosges 67540 OSTWALD – FRANCE
raspoutitsatan@wanadoo.fr