ZOOMA

This album really kicks ass in a positive way. The main body of this music is built tightly around John's really powerful bass lines and Pete Thomas' hard drum battering. Quite simple and primitive compositions are mostly designed for hard improvisational playing, offered as playing grounds for Trey Gunn's and Paul Leary's violent guitar works. There are also distorting noisescapes layered over the songs, amplifying the chaotic overall feeling. A one comparison to this music could be King Crimson's "Vroom Vroom" era material with lesser artistic solutions and post-production interventions. The absolute calm within this storm is the lovely "The Smile of Your Shadow", presenting nice mandolin licks by John, and concluding to a really beautiful ethereal end sequence, like melting to the heavens above. "Bass 'n' Drums" is then pure jamming with the mentioned instruments. I think this album could be mostly recommended for bass players and fans of late 1990's King Crimson. It's no coincidence that the record was released by Robert Fripp's DGM record label. In its simplicity the album is also quite accessible for a listener with a heavy music oriented tastes, if the lyrics are not mandatory feature. The simplicity of the songs underline the playing quality, and whilst in Led Zeppelin John used to play only basic lines backing up the other band, here his polished playing abilities get in my opinion a more deserved space.