ZU

Avant-rock experimentalists for the last 29 years, ZU have become legendary among fans of weird, wonky music. This instrumental Italian trio employ baritone sax, bass guitar and drums to conjure wild, angular labyrinths of riffing, noise and electronics, often hitting levels of heaviness that outstrip what we would expect from a three-piece. Over the years they have collaborated with the likes of Mike Patton, Dälek, Eugene Robinson and Damo Suzuki, released several records via Ipecac Recordings, been praised by avant-jazz maverick John Zorn, and toured extensively, including a European run as chief support to the FANTOMAS MELVINS BIG BAND in 2006. They remain deep under the radar, but now, thanks to the shrewd, savvy taste of ULVER's House Of Mythology imprint, they are releasing what could be their most high-profile record yet. "Ferrum Sidereum" is heavy, progressive, psychedelic and insidious: an 80-minute slow motion whirlwind of riffs and radicalism that truly cheers the soul.

ZU have such a strong and unique identity at this point that the majority of "Ferrum Sidereum" feels like a glowing advertisement for eccentricity in music. An opening trilogy of tracks encapsulates the band's core sound, with endless fidgety time signatures, staccato syncopation and lurching, multi-limbed riffs that bridge the gap between TOOL's elaborate psych-metal and the honking, jazz dissonance of Colin Stetson and Mats Gustafson. "Charagma", "Golgotha" and "Kether" all have their own atmospheric quirks, and these potent ensemble performances are all shrouded in jittery, ambient scree and mutant prog tropes. "A.I. Hive Mind" is even more startling, as woozy, lysergic complexity and confounding, post-rock freewheeling collide in a shower of obsidian sparks. ZU never abandon a groove until it has outlived its usefulness. The brilliance of this band becomes undeniable as they veer and swoop from one knotty riff to the next, and grand crescendos of howling noise erupt from slender cracks between the instruments. Sax player Luca T. Mai does some extraordinary things, either weaving between bassist Massimo Pupillo and drummer Paolo Mongardi's air-tight interplay, or locking into the same groove with thrilling, percussive energy.

Virtually every song here is an immersive, sprawling epic. "La Donna Vestita Di Sole" expands and warps over nine fascinating minutes, lightly evoking KING CRIMSON's studious barbarity but taking it somewhere utterly alien. "Pleroma" takes a subtler, more cosmic approach, with a slow, noirish build-up of synths, nomadic bass and bittersweet finger percussion, before an insistent bass riff pairs with a stunted drum machine pulse and shuffles off into an exotic, hallucinatory nightmare of cross-fed rhythms and bewildering, tangential shimmies. "Fuoco Saturnio" begins as an elegant showcase for Pupillo's bass work, morphs into a gritty, stuttering maelstrom of pugnacious prog riffs, pitched somewhere between VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR and MESHUGGAH. Next, "The Celestial Bull and the White Lady" wrings an ocean of disquiet from the ebb and flow of another TOOL-adjacent polyrhythm, but with a brooding, symphonic edge and flashes of HAWKWIND-like maximalism. In contrast, "Hymn of the Pearl" is a full-bore psychedelic rollercoaster, steeped in Mellotron murk and the grimy sonic stuff of nightmares.

It concludes with the schizophrenic tone collage of "Perseidi" and the towering title track. With "Ferrum Sidereum", ZU bang the last nail into normalcy's coffin, expanding upon the caustic grind of a lobotomized bassline and spiraling off into orbit on one final, three-man mission to simultaneously disorient and stimulate the listener's third eye. A grim cacophony with oases of calm, it brings this relentlessly absorbing marathon to an unnerved, brutally hypnotic close. Nobody else sounds like ZU, and there will not be many albums released in 2026 that demonstrate such profound, elastic originality. Prepare to have your mind blown to bits.