Zeni Geva ‎– Live In Amerika

It's nice to hear the Japanese pull their favourite Extreme Noise fetish into a Rock suit & let it loose upon the world, a little like a slightly-less-tasteful Godzilla. The first 11 tracks were recorded live at LACE in Los Angeles on 23rd August 92. "Total Castration" erupts in chaotic madness before settling into a slow Industrial Rock number, which crawls upon heavily-muscled limbs in the fetid undergrowth, hungry for the kill, lean & mean. "Bigman Death" follows a similar path, tight & thick as a sequoia trunk, it tends towards an amorphous bass end, the live sound giving it ghost rumbles like suggestions of leviathans beneath. "Autobody" batters into life on angry drums, lashing guitar riffs which remind me in many ways of early Punk - powerful & relentless. "Guystick Bodie" opens with a scream, wallowing its great heavy weight around in muddy grunge before powering off in a hectic Rhino-charge of a track with guitar scrawling thin grafitti across the heavy runbling walls. "Shirushi" rises out of the feedback, a slow, plodding, menacing behemoth of a thing, reminding me a lot of the group whose name they use for the next track - "Godflesh". This is a faster, angrier piece, boiling with ire kept in restraint only by the knowledge of inevitable victory. "Honowo" opens dramatically, as a more progressive influence had bled through. It's simplistic approach transcends even Punk, child-like yet mighty. "New Flesh" crawls out of the anger of the previous track, again having GODFLESH-like mean mass. "The Body" settles down into another slow, weighty track, muscling it's way out of the speakers like a bell-bent psycho armed with a baseball bat. "Dead Sun Rising" is a faster, danceable piece combining the three talented noisemongers in a tight monster of a track. "I want You", the last from the LACE LA gig shows them leaving their audience on a high - a dark track, thick & leaden as molasses, it wallow in it's clinging blackness like some creature bathing in a tar pit, strong enough to pull itself free. The next three were recorded at the "O-CAYZ, Madison gig on the 9th August 92 - starting with "Skullfuck", the sound is perhaps less thunderous, slightly brighter & tinnier, well-muscled as it twists off in a variety of directions. "Bloodsex" again has the dark grunge rolling soporific pace of GODFLESH at their massive best, decorating it with garlands of razor-wire guitar, sparkling with bright metal & foolhardy blood. "The Body" - another version, is again slow-paced & huge, the bass foundation rising over the scattering of runaway axe. Another version of "Shirushi' comes from the LOUNGE AX in Chicago on the 8th of the same month - again a dead slow track which suddenly kicks into fast, furious life, an ever-oncoming juggernaut of solid metal muscle, bearing down on the headlight-transfixed listener. The album closes with another version of "I Want You", this one having been recorded at HEINZ in Oakland on the 27th of that month - a thinner, somehow lighter version with the bass held back, the guitar well forward & the vocals muffled. It's a bright, chaotic berzerker of a track & a good way to finish the album.
ZENI GEVA are NULL on guitar & vocals; TABATA on guitar & EITO & drums.

Originally reviewed for Soft Watch.