I’ve been into Italian noise duo Zeus! ever since I saw them support Retox here last July. That show amazed me. They were loud, heavy and weird. I picked up their album ‘Opera’ on the strength of that show, and it matched the show’s strange brutality. Both that show and the album left me dying to see them again and luckily I didn’t have to wait that long as they played yet another excellent show this very night.
First off tonight Muntjac grace us with their first gig. They have a few things in common with tonight’s headliner. They just made up of drums, bass and vocals; they make a fucking racket and they slay.
Things get fucking weird for Genius Of Germs. Their spoken word injected no wave spooks for the whole twenty minutes of their set. I can’t tell if they just played one really long song or blended lots together. I’ll go with it being one song. The guitar’s squeal and drone. Painfully to conventional music fans, blissfully to noise enthusiasts, and are the perfect soundtrack to their frontman wailing on dramatically as if this were a dark play.
Instrumental retro prog rockers Monster Killed By Laser, would be the weirdest band on almost any other bill, but they’re the most easy going one tonight. Their music is adventurous, even if in a way slightly similar to prog bands before them. The synth stands out as it makes the songs that little bit more out of this world, but the rest of the music does a good enough job of making this a great band.
When Zeus! take to the floor (no stage in the Brudenell Social Club’s second room by the way), they’re met by about twenty people. You feel they deserve a better turn out because they’re so good and here all the way from Italy, but that’s part of the beauty of this show, without trying to sound like a hipster. There’s an exciting underground noise movement happening right now, (really an ongoing one that’s been around for decades) and Zeus! are a part of that. It doesn’t matter if Zeus! aren’t playing to a ton of people, this is about people coming together as a community and enjoying music so unconventional and in your face that it pushes listeners away rather than trying to pull them in; yet for whatever reason us as individuals like it, something Zeus! provide us with tonight. But enough about me preaching the joys of underground music. How were Zeus!?
Zeus! Are only made up of bassist/(slight) vocalist Luca Cavina and drummer Paolo Mongardi. They put a lot of bands with guitars to shame as they display more loudness and creativity with this very stripped down formula of rock music. I’m aware they’re not the first band with just bass and drums, but they do it so damn well and in such a unique way. Songs like ‘Bach To The Future’ and ‘Beelzebulb’ are absolute monsters of songs that punch like several guitars not just one bass and a drum set (although over a dozen guitar pedals helps this greatly), and their creators play them like psychos. Luca Cavina constantly has a manic look in his eyes and lips as he hammers out each devastating note and gives the occasional bark. Paolo Mongardi is one of the most entertaining drummers you will ever see, displaying amazingly fast and precise skill with the most menacing grin on his face as he hits as loud as humanly possible. They’re clearly in love with what they do and do it uncompromising, without the slightest care whether others will like it or not, but I’m confident the handful of people here tonight will have loved what they do too.
They came, they wowed, they might’ve scared some, but gave those lucky few here tonight an excellent gig and the rest of Leeds have no idea what they missed out on.
Rating 8/10.
maxcussons 