WHITE SUN BLACK SUN

IN ZAIRE are an Italian four piece band who had back in 2010 released a split album with another band before releasing "White Sun Black Sun" in 2013. They have since released "Visions Of The Age To Come" in 2017 which I haven't heard. Man you would not know this was an Italian band from their name to the title of the album to the song titles to the music. This is driving energetic music dominated by beats of drums, percussion, bass and electronics. There are some vocals that echo on the opener but this is an instrumental record. Two of the guys play electronics, two add percussion plus we get guitar and bass. Samples on "Jupiter". My two favourite are "Mercury" and "Venus" and I had both cranked at various times this past week. The next two favourites of mine are the two where they change it up and slow it down adding experimental stuff and that would be "Moon" and the closer "Saturn".

The opener "Sun" is fast paced, like an all out blitz for 5 minutes and it's not exactly a good start in my opinion but the next track "Moon" impresses me. Starting off slow with lots of atmosphere it builds with the guitar and drums standing out. This is so good! They take it up a notch 4 minutes in. Great track! "Mars" is excellent and there's a tension that doesn't let up. "Mercury" is so catchy and there's so much depth to all the beats. Nasty stuff and inventive plus this is ground shaking. Love that ending.

"Jupiter" is more like soundscape music without much structure. "Venus" features active drums, layers of sound and repeated guitar melodies and it sounds amazing! The guitar around 2 1/2 minutes sounds pretty cool. They kick it into a higher gear before 4 minutes and check out the guitar here. They are crushing it 5 minutes in. "Saturn" ends it and this is more of an experimental track with a dark soundscape that is kind of haunting. We start to get some structure 3 minutes in with guitar over the drums and more arrives as it picks up. I really like this one.

This was a pleasant surprise and one of the many great Space Rock albums from 2013.