FIVE SUNS

Guapo's Five Suns is one of the most impressive albums I came to discover in my PA newbie days. Guapo play a very intense kind of instrumental Zeuhl, taking all the fire and impetus of Magma, but stripping the music to a bare skeleton of virulent drums and bass, building imposing layers of electronic effects, rhodes piano and mellotron on top. The result is pitch black, wild, entrancing and unsettling.

Guapo are decisively less jazzy then Magma or Dün but make up for that with a more rocking edge, adding post-rock dynamics, and everything between clean guitar textures and distorted dissonance. So we find ourselves on a meeting point between dark Magma and heavy Crimson, a universe also inhabited by Nebelnest and some of the early Anekdoten.

The bulk of the album is made up by the 45 minute Five Suns suite. It's one continuous piece of thundering bass, commanding drum rhythms and eerie electronics. A masterpiece of musical intensity. After a minute pause, the album concludes with two lighter pieces. Relatively speaking of course, but there's a touch of melodious development on Mitclan and an almost dreamy atmosphere on Topan.

Not suited for everyone's taste, this album could still be a good choice to challenge and shake one's harmonious sensibilities. If you're already into Magma, Crimson, Nebelnest and other examples of dark prog intensity then you obviously already own this one.