Hail the God of Thunder and Sky: Happy birthday to ZEUS! Motomonotono, 9/15/15

Hail the God of Thunder and Sky: Happy birthday to ZEUS! Motomonotono, 9/15/15

On their Motomonotono LP, released this day five years ago, ZEUS! is a thunderous, unholy orchestra–a power current plugged directly into the side of your skull. It’s a monstrous, dynamic, tremendous assault, a two-headed electric eel in the tradition of likeminded devastators Hella, Pink and Brown, Orthrelm, and Lightning Bolt.

Luca Cavina’s distorted bass, as heavy as a warship, pairs up with the nimble but violent drums of Paolo Mongardi in a way that makes a lot of “brutal” music genres seem as soft as a mink and thin as a cloud. (This isn’t hardcore, metal, prog, math-rock, doom, etc, it’s ZEUS!)

The other side of the Italian duo is their precise, meticulous, confident touch. Nothing here is flailed out of bounds or shot haphazard at the listener. ZEUS! is loud and heavy with a smart, directed knowledge of their craft. Every scream, bass note, and drum hit is exactly where it should be (and exactly where no one else would think to place it; Motomonotono, like the Opera LP before it, is a work of pure originality).

Cavina and Mongardi also know when to back off into weird dark-psyche interludes, tripped-out drones, or dinosauric sludge. This is no one trick pony here. It’s more a Trojan Horse that’s also a pipebomb the size of the world, a volcano belching magma and ash, a library of the occult, and a solid gold dragon. ZEUS! is too good to bore you, too engaged in their work to let you down. Hail the god of thunder and sky.

–Adam Gnade (9/15/20)

Video by Displaced/ Replaced