Italian-based trio Zu are rooted in a mesmerising, genre-blurring complexity of metal, jazz, and industrial soundscapes.

With 2026 only just beginning, they’ve already forged a newly clarified, pulse-driven sonic language on their album House of Mythology.
It’s genuinely so immersive I could happily get lost in it forever.
It’s honestly almost unbelievable that this kind of world-building sound is created by just three people.

Beyond their immense technical power and intensity, Zu feel like a band that exists outside rigid boundaries in music.
There’s something truly wonderful in their refusal to conform, and their openness makes their music feel genuinely safe for queer listeners like myself.
Their sound welcomes the different and the strange, through glorious distortion and a relentlessness that becomes pleasingly hypnotic.

Zu operates through extravagant improvisation, channeling the freedom of jazz through pulsing drive rock.

The result of their new album is in my opinion music that’s both mystifyingly explosive and deeply meditative.
If you’re a fan of heavy distortion, intricate rhythms, and explosively infused rock that still leaves room for vulnerability and exploration, this band is absolutely for you.

Words, thoughts by Beck Carol they/them