With an onslaught of great MA bands set to release new material this year (Killswitch Engage, Summoner, Jack Burton vs. David LoPan), it helps to be the first out of the gates and that’s just what Gozu has done with their latest, The Fury Of A Patient Man. Take a mixture of Kyuss, The Desert Sessions discs, Hermano, and mix it with some good old fashioned rawk and roll and you’ll know what Gozu’s The Fury Of A Patient Man is all about.
You might have read our write up of lead off Fury… song “Bald Bull” in December but that little ditty barely scratches the surface of what’s within. From there, “Signed, Epstein’s Mother” ups the boogie quotient considerably while “Charles Bronson Pinchot” is the kind of chugfest that MA heaviness is known for. Elsewhere “Irish Dart Fight” could easily have been a part of Queens of the Sone Age’s masterful 1998 debut by bringing to mind songs like “Avon” and “Mexicola”.
The coup-de-grace however is vocalist Marc Gaffney who easily gives John Garcia a run for his money when it comes to his blues soaked vocal stylings especially on tracks like the fuzzed out “Disco Related Injury” and “Traci Lords” (Both of which feature some simply incredible riffing provided by Gaffney and Doug Sherman). It’s all of Gozu that makes The Fury… work, though, and I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t mention how true that is after you listen to the epic “The Ceaseless Thunder Of Surf” which closes out the album after clocking in just under 24 minutes.
The Fury Of A Patient Man is available now. Get it through Small Stone Records’ Bandcamp page or through Itunes now.
Grade: A