UNIVERS ZERO [AKA: 1313]

Univers Zero might not have invented chamber rock - Henry Cow's work from In Praise of Learning onwards often approached it, and of course Art Zoyd's chamber rock debut preceded Univers Zero's by some way. But it was Univers Zero who took the idea and really ran with it, dropping the improvisational impulses underling Henry Cow and the dissonance of Art Zoyd and replacing them with tightly composed, technically complex and brilliantly performed pieces. Dramatic, frightening, and innovative, their debut album is a tour de force, the opening Ronde being a particularly powerful demonstration of the potentials of this new style of theirs.