Warthur A comparatively terse album for Guapo - in its physical incarnation the release is made a bit more tempting with a bonus live DVD - finds the band exploring its usual vast range of sounds. The epic Pilman Radiant finds them bridging sounds ranging from the brutal prog of Five Suns or Black Oni to more jazzy, lighter affairs, reminiscent of the Canterbury-tinged early sound of RIO pioneers like Samla Mammas Manna or Henry Cow. Complex #7 is a harshly electronic intermission before the foreboding Tremors From the Future plays us out. Not quite as groundbreaking as Five Suns or Black Oni, but it's still nice to see Guapo keeping their hand in the game.

Warthur Guapo's Black Oni is much in the same vein as the preceding Five Suns - an intoxicating blend of mid-1970s King Crimson, early Univers Zero, classic-era Magma and a whole bunch more besides. Once again, the band take a Magma-inspired approach to compositional structure, producing an album-length suite which is full of twists and turns and remains vivid and entertaining right to the end, and on the whole I think there's a bit more of a Univers Zero vibe about this one than the previous one, but really they're much of a muchness - if you like one, you'll like the other, if you don't like one you'll most likely like neither.

Warthur Sure, the influences of Guapo might be fairly typical for RIO bands - Magma, the mid-1970s incarnation of King Crimson and Univers Zero - but it's the way they bring these influences together on Five Suns which makes it such a fun trip. You have the Magma influence in the deep, pulsating rhythms and the epic song structures (the main event here being a 45 minute track), you have the wild guitar excursions and Mellotron-mania of Red-era King Crimson, and you have the mysterious and frightening aesthetic of Univers Zero, all brought together in an avant-prog attack which will also appeal to many symphonic prog listeners.

Bmiler The most extreme end of prog, with enough heavy guitars and heavy enough where more adventurous metalheads would certainly find much to enjoy, just as much as the more extreme progheads would. The average Bon Jovi or Marillion fan need not apply, that's for sure! What you get is music that brings to mind King Crimson at its more heavy, with influences from the likes of Magma, Univers Zero, and the likes. Lots of heavily fuzzed bass and guitar work from Matt Thompson (whose brother is Andy Thompson, who runs the Planet Mellotron website, and in fact his tron is used on this album), electric piano and even Mellotron from Daniel O'Sullivan and some intense drumming from Dave Smith. At times, his electric piano is in the Canterbury style, and even when he plays like that, you're still faced with this wall of relentless noise. 2005's Black Oni is the followup to Five Suns, and is the second in a trilogy (which ends with 2008's Elixirs). If you love Five Suns, you need this, as it's much the same (in fact the only two Guapo albums that feature the same lineup). This is a full frontal assault that even many thrash metal bands only dream of! It's a great discovery for me, and if you like the more extreme end of prog, or just something heavy and doomy sounding, you can't go wrong here!

Conor Fynes 'Towers Open Fire' - Guapo (3/10)

The 90's in rock music represented a bitter rebellion against the overproduced glitz of the decade prior. Although few bands would take the dissonance and fuzz as far as Guapo, it was not unprecedented for an artist to give their music a darker atmosphere. In the case of Guapo's experimental rock debut 'Towers Open Fire', the best word to describe it may be 'jarring'. Bringing in a bevy of sounds from every corner of the ugly spectrum, this is a difficult and inaccessible listen. That does not mean however, that there is much depth to the sound. Although Guapo's ambition to hurt their listeners' ears is admirable, with each listen to 'Towers Open Fire', the failed mixture of noise, hardcore punk, and jazz fusion only gets more irritating to listen to.

Guapo's sound may be compared to 90's era King Crimson, without the technical proficiency. They most reminded me of the Japanese noise rock act Zeni Geva, however scarce of KK Null's samurai yell and distinctive charm. For a three piece, Guapo can certainly get a lot of sounds going at once. Sadly, none of them are particularly well done, and many are downright unpleasant to listen to. Matt Thompson's vocals are not so much 'singing' as what I might liken to the sound of a drunk British teenager yelling at authority figures. The bass sparks an interesting thought or two- an eerie passage on 'Ceasefire Ends' illustrates this- but it's more than usually flooded over by guitars and waves of sharp electronic noise. Although 'Towers Open Fire' is unsuccessful as an album overall, many of the guitar ideas are quite interesting. Despite being executed in a rough, untuned, punk-like style, there are jazz fusion chords at work. It makes for a surprising dichotomy.

Had Guapo simply been composed of a bass, guitar, and uncoordinated drums, I would dismiss the work as amateurish and mediocre, but not 'bad'. Where 'Towers Open Fire' really goes wrong is with the electronic 'ambiance'. Dissonance has alot of untapped potential for emotional impact and power, but the noise here evokes only a dull pain inside my skull that some people like to call a headache. Not only that, but the ideas come together in such an incoherent way; although Guapo may repeat ideas, they're never concise enough to make for memorable songwriting, and never drawn out enough to create a sense of atmosphere. In short, 'Towers Open Fire' has ambition, but it falls short on virtually every front. To many people, this will be unlistenable, but even for someone open- minded enough to confront the ugly textures and freeform structure, it is difficult to recognize any depth underneath the shell. I won't say that Guapo's debut is utterly terrible, but for the effort a listener will have to put into this album, there is very little payoff.