Gozu

Boston’s Gozu emerged in 2007 as a sprawling, aggressive metal unit whose sound reaches across decades, weaving in echoes of 1960s psychedelia, thick 1970s stoner-guitar tones, and 1990s grunge textures. Vocalist and guitarist Marc Gaffney joined forces with guitarist Doug Sherman and drummer Barry Spillberg to launch the project, which first surfaced via a seven-track EP in 2008 that highlighted the group’s elusive blend of groove-metal heft and stoner-rock swing. Bassist Jay Cannava came aboard shortly afterward, and the Detroit indie Small Stone Records soon enlisted the quartet to record its first full-length effort, Locust Season, which appeared in the middle of 2010.

Fury of a Patient Man arrived three years later, a period that also saw Cannava depart and Joe Grotto step in on bass. The band resurfaced in 2016 with Revival, an album that plunged further into lush, organically textured, psych-tinged territory. In 2018 Gozu moved to Metal Blade Records for Equilibrium, an album tracked in the aftermath of Gaffney’s father’s passing and marked by an emotionally charged balance of pummeling anthems and more trance-like passages.