Zu - The Way Of The Animal Powers - CD (2005)

Labels: Xeng
Review by: Alex Deller

What an odd beast this is. Zu belches into life like an enormous mechanical bullfrog, lurching slowly and unsteadily to the tune of an untamed bass guitar, clunking away like Bob Weston drunk on whatever you use stop pachyderms in their thundering tracks. The relative normality of this is cast to the winds with an entirely random array of clanks, groans and drones that are, allegedly, caused by such regular instruments as saxophone and cello, though personally I have my doubts. The resultant nine songs glue themselves together less as individual entities than the various stages of a dastardly masterplan, a queasy, free jazz-influenced experiment that should have fans of Guapo and Noagxt gleefully rubbing their greasy hands together with each abstract squeal.