Painless

It is unfortunate that music criticism will always be scarred by the consideration that any band could be doing it solely for the money. Whether they happen to play a very popular sound from the outset or clumsily segue into it during the peak, this cynical outlook will always colour the perspective and often produce writing that is equally as hollow as the music they tear into with reckless abandon.

With 'Painless' Sanzu aren't really selling out but you would be naive to think that the chugging riffs, breakdowns and sickeningly sterile production are not the result of influence from djent and deathcore. Sanzu just sounds like a band of guys who listened to Gojira's 'From Mars to Sirius' far too much: the guitar tone, the riffs, pinch harmonics, guitar slides, drumming... everything screams shameless Gojira worship. The tremolo riffs, particularly those in the closer 'Lunar Crush', sound a lot closer to death metal than Gojira ever did and draw superficial comparisons to Morbid Angel when they were at their slowest and least complex. The opening minute of "18 Days of Rain" however shifts that comparison directly to 'In the Wake of Collisions' by the Arcane Order because the similarity is uncanny even if only five people might realise it.

The music on 'Painless' is bland and lifeless on the surface, a churning mass of over-produced Gojira-esque riffs. Attempts to further analyse and dissect their songs only draw even more direct comparisons to Gojira, and highlight numerous similarities to a slew of other bands. So in light of the opening paragraph let's shed this unhealthy cynicism and give Sanzu the benefit of the doubt: their music is an amalgam of various influences that has resulted in them sounding like the breakout album of a popular metal band.