On Wax: Gozu, The Fury of a Patient Man

I don’t want to come off like I’m tooting my own horn, but I feel like Gozu‘s The Fury of a Patient Man is a record I know pretty well by now. The Boston-based outfit’s 2013 sophomore outing was reviewed early last year, wound up on my Top 20 for the year, and was an album that I never strayed too far from as the months passed. As I got to see the band live more often, the material was fresh stayed fresh in my head and even more than their 2010 debut, Locust Season (review here), I considered The Fury of a Patient Man one I more or less had a handle of in terms of its perspective and where the band was coming from.

Listening back now to the Small Stone vinyl version of it — 500 copies pressed to 180g platters in a thick-stock sleeve with one transparent green LP and one solid purple LP — my impression of the songs themselves hasn’t changed all that much. It’s still a very, very good album, whether you listen to it linear on a CD or mp3s, or whether you get up after a couple songs to turn over between “Salty Thumb” and “Disco Related Injury.” When I first heard it, I remember thinking how much heavier it was than Locust Season, which already lacked nothing for sonic beef. Now, after seeing the band as much as I have since I first heard it (live reviews here, here, here, here, here, here and here), I’m likewise astounded by how much heavier they’ve become live.

Part of that has to be the lineup. In the time since The Fury of a Patient Man was recorded, Gozu guitarists Marc Gaffney and Doug Sherman have solidified their rhythm section with bassist Joe Grotto and drummer Mike Hubbard, but on the 2LP, Grotto is one of three bassists who appears — Jay Canava and Paul Dellaire are the other two — and he’s only on the three bonus tracks included on side D. Hubbard is an even more recent addition than that, and even on those bonus cuts, Barry Spillberg handles drums. The new players have had a significant impact on Gozu‘s sound, so although it’s only a little over a year old, The Fury of a Patient Man already marks a point in the band’s progression which they’ve already moved past.

“Moved past” is the wrong phrase. It’s not like Gozu have outgrown these songs — they still make up the majority of what they play live, and cuts like “Bald Bull,” “Ghost Wipe,” “Irish Dart Fight” and “Signed, Epstein’s Mom” are perennial highlights — but the circumstances have changed. They’re not the same band they were when this album was recorded. Nonetheless, The Fury of a Patient Man remains an unmistakable hallmark of the quality in what Gozu do, and they’ve always been a different act live anyway, putting aside some of the vocal harmonies and layering from Gaffney and opting for a more straightforward, at times pummeling, approach, blended with the thick grooves and a relentlessly forward thrust.

Both offer a rich listening experience, and I find in revisiting The Fury of a Patient Man that my appreciation for it hasn’t diminished. What was a driving opening salvo of “Bald Bull,” “Signed, Epstein’s Mom,” “Charles Bronson Pinchot” and “Irish Dart Fight” now makes up the majority of side A with “Salty Thumb” hinting at some of the sonic branching out side B will hold, and the unabashed pop catchiness of “Ghost Wipe” and “Traci Lords” stand out well with “Snake Plissken”‘s shuffle on the back half of the green record. I was curious prior to listening what they might do with the 23-minute “The Ceaseless Thunder of Surf,” but it appears here uninterrupted as the entirety of side C and preserves its claim as the album’s most get-lost-in-it moment.

The aforementioned bonus tracks, particularly “Break You,” which is the middle of the three, are of particular note for being the band’s most recent recordings. Teaming with Lo-Pan vocalist Jeff MartinGozu open side D with a cover of the title-track to D’Angelo‘s 1995 debut, Brown Sugar that incorporates parts of “Shit, Damn, Motherfucker” as well. If it’s a goof, it’s far from Gozu‘s first — see also almost all of their song titles — but they’ve always had a touch of soul in their approach anyway, so “Brown Sugar (Shit Damn Motherfucker)” speaks to that, offers a thick groove from Grotto‘s bass and takes on a classic funk-jam kind of feel, Gaffney and Martin working well enough alongside each other so that I hope it’s not their last collaboration.

Arriving prior to a Simply Red cover “Holding back the Years,” “Break You” is the only one of the bonus tracks that’s a Gozu original, and it starts with Gaffney‘s voice with the guitars, bass and drums swelling up behind before moving into a dreamier verse in a linear kind of structure that’s still not devoid of a hook, the chorus, “I don’t want to break you/I only want to shake you,” etc., standing up to any of its counterparts on the album proper and still leaving room for Sherman to rip into a solo marking out the apex prior to a final slowdown and some well falsetto’ed last-minute crooning . Their take on “Holding back the Years” is decidedly more open, reinterpreting the cut from Simply Red‘s 1985 debut, Picture Book, with an airy, psychedelic sprawl, guitar and voice echoing alike over a solid but languid rhythmic foundation that spreads the four-minute original to nearly twice its original length.

It’s a more adventurous cover if less of a party than the D’Angelo track, but frankly, both have their appeal and show more than a little effort on Gozu‘s part to make them their own. Together with “Break You” and the rest of The Fury of a Patient Man itself, the 2LP edition of the album becomes not only a reminder of one of last year’s best outings, but a celebration of it as well and a look for fans at a band who continue to get more and more vibrant as they continually defy their comfort zone. As familiar as I’ve felt with these tracks, I’ve yet to make my way through them without hearing something new.

Gozu, The Fury of a Patient Man (2013)

Gozu on Thee Facebooks

The Fury of a Patient Man on Bandcamp

Small Stone Records

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