Zeni Geva

Japan's Zeni Geva are relentless, forceful and ultra-intelligent; their steam-rolling assault of progressive jazz noise rock hymns inbred with touches of ancient traditional Japanese passages are not just metal - they are comprised of too much of everything to simply be one thing. Like slightly sinister religious alter egos of early Rush, the Melvins and Phleg Camp, they operate like punk rock samurai with a master's degree in musicology, slicing away at the brain to reveal the emotional areas where few true influential artists of all genres have managed to channel from. Engineer Steve Albini, whose band Shellac are friends, supporters and musical kindred spirits to Zeni Geva, runs around with a wide butterfly net of analog tape, lucidly capturing their terrifyingly intense energy as well as the delicate and precise textures of noise that ricochet off the studio walls. However, the illusion that the recording makes is that it sounds as if they are performing inside an ancient temple. Both the left and right side of the sound spectrum are entirely guarded by an instrument, which leaves the listener no choice but to be in the centre where they will be pummelled by a series of hallucinogenic spirals and massive, geometric coloured blocks of sound, divided by breaks of oblong time signatures, ritualistic repetitions and cinematic grooves. 10,000 Light Years is a genuine psychedelic experience that will dilate the ear canal in order to fully penetrate the mind's cerebral vortex. Your ears might get bruised in the process, but you will benefit from experiencing new and undocumented sensations firsthand.