ZU — Cortar Todo
Riffage and groove are central to most of the songs on the record, and the majority of the album is great headbanging/mosh material. Fans of experimental hardcore or groups like The Locust should also easily appreciate this group's ferocity, agility and bold use of ugly chords. The song "Rudra Dances Over Burning Rome" has a devastating downtuned Sabbath-style power chord breakdown, which seques into a distinctly Meshuggah sounding frantic polyrhythm.
Meshuggah influence is worn proudly thoughout the album, and executed more convincingly than with most of overly pretentious and clean cut 'djent' genre, which has thus far never captured Meshuggah's darkness or grit. The music here sounds particularly close to the cerebral, slower paced grooves found on the "Nothing" album. As I think Meshuggah one of the great groups of all time, for me to say these songs reach their level is a huge compliment.
Perhaps the album's most distinctive feature is the satisfyingly 'metal' (or perhaps 'jazzcore') usage of baritone saxophone. Luca T Mai's aggressive, rattling low register horn growls underscore the album's many riffs, giving the songs a bone dry, rough hewn quality that feels authentic and primitive. Each chord they play has a dinosaur sized 'roar'.
The cover of the album, picturing a massive seashell embedded in the surface of a planet, is beautiful and inexplicable, and sets an abstract and cosmic tone for the album. The sounds the band creates are suitably mysterious and larger than life to be paired with the cataclysmic phenomena of nature, and to my ears, better for being left unblemished by attempts at lyrical content. Afterall, I frequently loves the musical qualities of metal, but feels it's often limited by cliched or ridiculous lyrical content. The cosmic feeling is further heightened by the darkly luminescent ambient piece "Serpens Cauda", showing skillful manipulation of glassy electronic tones.
The energy summoned in the ZU's build ups, or indeed, in any riff they play, is enough to spur the creation of countless images in the listener's mind. Though they rarely, if ever, play a melody or overtly emotional passage, opting instead for a stampeding intimidation, there's something powerfully emotional, on a basic human level, about the bellowing sound they have made. The spirituality beneath the sound is most apparent on tracks like the final piece "Pantokrator", a glowing piece of feedback joined by the album's only vocals, Native American sounding shamanic chants.
The last 2 minutes of the album are intensely memorable but physically excruciating. A piercing, shrill 'scree' of harsh noise aims to obliterate all listeners at several times the volume as the rest of the album. I appreciate the bold dramatic gesture, and I can't fault them for striving for intensity.
I was very pleasantly surprised by this album, as I'd never heard of ZU before. I now feel compelled to investigate their whole discography! I'd highly recommend this album to any fan of Meshuggah, djent, Zeuhl, or brainy instrumental music of any kind. A very ambitious piece of work that succeeds on all counts.