Züüd is (or was? I’m not sure whether this project is still active???) an outfit by Portugal-born sweetie Nuno Laurenço, based in Brazil. Nuno is also known, as you do probable know, from acts like 0-Nun, Thermohaline (with Druon Antigon’s Lennart Janssen), A Walloping Curse, or the Centipede Abyss related orchestras Salqiu and Mouth Of Cedar (with Pan Merakli, Taylor Belanger and Jared Moran). Under the Züüd moniker, Nuno independently released the KozmzoK four-tracker in Spring 2019, but then all traces of existence did fade away into legendary oblivion…
Enter 2026, enter Centipede Abyss, enter madness. Since Nuno became part of this pleasantly insane community, the decision to re-release this underestimated material via Centipede Abyss was easily made. All together: hurray! No, seriously, this older material now sees a re-issue, although it is a strictly limited physical re-release, evidently. Only 25 (twenty-five indeed) copies were made, never to be re-printed again. A fine element is that the artwork is new, yet still maintaining the original concept of cosmic grandeur. For the sake of completeness: it’s a part of a picture by ESO/VPHAS+, i.e. a fragment of the (Southern) Milky Way, taken by a huge telescope in a Chile-based space observatory.
This said… KozmzoK has a total running time of twenty-nine minutes, carefully divided, as said before, into four chapters: the title track, Juudr Urfaud, Pyotr Drassnaut and Brazüüd Besdazz. I do not think the whole thing has been remastered, which results in a positive effect: a pure and honest sound, and okay, it’s rough, unpolished, primal and savage too, but it does strengthen the intolerant attitude. No compromise, just blackness. No concessions, pure madness. No rules or path, just bizarre nihilism!
As from the opening title song, one can experience a primitive execution, raw and harsh in execution, epic and victorious in atmosphere. It brings an essence of old schooled Black Metal, mixing elements from different sub-genres, resulting in a very own-faced approach. Rugged guitar ‘melodies’ interact with deep-tuned bass-lines, faster shapes-of-cruel-nature exist in perfected balance with harmonious fragments, brutal rhythms go hand in hand (or is it: claw in claw) with somehow elegant patterns, old style riffing hooks up with progressive structures, and ferocious mechanical blasts merge with spherical passages. Each piece out of four exceeds superficiality, normality or prediction, for the sonic encounter is, in a most exciting way, challenging yet hazardous.
The use of acoustic guitars (mind the traditional intro on Pyotr Drassnaut) and keyboards (and even an operatic introduction on Juudr Urfaud) - subtle in use yet undeniably important in result - as well as the vocal variety, the hypnotic leads, and the many tempo-changes, fortify the thrilling, vivid character of this recording. It’s like Salqiu in its most dissonant, utter-dynamic, industrial-laden, inimical and chaotic shape, if you want to; at least as complex and more ‘cosmic’ in its core.
I know that ‘hope’ is for the weak-hearted amongst us, but I trust in new material. I might be naïve, yet since this ‘older’ stuff gets re-released, it might be an omen for new material to come up soon?...
https://centipedeabyss.bandcamp.com/album/kozmzok
https://zuud.bandcamp.com/album/kozmzok