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Slow to mid-paced Black Metal can always seem a little painful, and with their second release Turkish monsters Zifir really test your patience, despite offering a few glimpses of interest. There's not so much a doom feel to Protest Against Humanity as a dirge-like one; you feel like you're merging with the shadows in crowded back alleys, the walls caving in with fantastic speed. Through low-fi guitars, open acoustics, ponderous drum beats, and vocals that whisper, croak, and howl, Zifir manage to frighten you, but their music is so godlessly pedestrian you're not sure if it's worth replaying. Vocally, the album varies in quality, and even the riffs can anesthetize rather than invigorate, but when they get it right, as on "A Death", "Most Bitter Enemy", or "Worm Shaped", Zifir produce a hazy but enjoyable slog through the generic conventions. The rest of the time, their music is suitably torturous.

The more listens you put away, the less offensive this seems, though at first it's hard to make anything of it; the album doesn't get going until half way through, when the band bring feral blasting to the fore, which seriously revitalizes their sound. Mildly unpleasant and inspiring only on occasion, this is innocuous Black Metal that is easily forgotten.