Zu

Zu have just finished mixing their new cd, which happens to be also their Ipecac Recordings debut and features collaborations with Mike Patton and King Buzzo of The Melvins . “Carboniferous” cd comes after one year of consistent touring in quartet with Patton. The album opens with an amazing, almost’ techno-hypnotic’, bass and drum assault only to be rudely interupted by what sounds like an insane, distorted saxophone. Time signatures are all over the place, but not out of  control, which adds a restrained and sinister quality to the record. The tone  remains the same throughout: dark and intense, whilst managing to stay interesting enough to suprise the listener as it lurches along like an unstopable Jazz/Doom Leviathan. Some people have complained that the band sound a little too much like Lightning Bolt, with whom they have toured; I would, however, argue that where LB suffer from repitition sometimes (perhaps a bane of their being a two-piece),  Zu manage to push their sound to the outer corners of the genres they explore, and keep it really  interesting.