Guapo - Five Suns mp3 album

Once when reviewing Volcano The Bear's support gig at the Physio & Firkin (31 May 1997), I totally dismissed the main act, whose name I had forgotten. I said "Best to forget about them anyway, despite a number of records on release, their thrash-speed-punk-metal was a bit of a come-down after what we'd had before". I've been reminded since that the band was called Guapo. So, I was very surprised to learn of this new album on Cuneiform. But, a lot has changed in six years!Guapo still have at their core a power rock focus of bass and drums with metal guitar, but the music is much more a hybrid of old heavy instrumental Anekdoten cum King Crimson, with liberal doses of Zeuhl/RIO in the vein of Present, Univers Zero or Happy Family. In fact Guapo do have the feel of a Japa-Zeuhl combo, though they've a lot more sense of composition and dynamics than someone like Koenji or Ruins. A lot of this is down to the keyboard player, who seems to have been studying the techniques used by various Magma and Univers Zero people.