By their seventh album, Giöbia seem like a fixed constellation in the European heavy-psych sky. From Beyond the Stars to the acid voyages of Acid Disorder, the Milanese band – brothers Stefano “Bazu” and Paolo Basurto, Melissa Crema, and Pietro D’Ambrosio – have travelled through twenty years of fuzz and cosmic visions, arriving now at X-ÆON (Heavy Psych Sounds, 2025), which aims to be both a summation and a new beginning. The title evokes an eternal time, suspended between myth and technology, and the record truly tries to fling open the doors of perception.
Voodoo Experience raises the curtain with Sabbath-like energy and tribal groove, while Fractal Haze moves along kraut coordinates worthy of Amon Düül II and Neu!. The Death of the Crows — the album’s only sung track — brings an analog melancholy that recalls the Goblin of Suspiria more than straight psychedelic rock. Then comes 1976, a motorik sci-fi odyssey that merges Pink Floyd and Tangerine Dream in a dense fog of delay.
At the heart of the album lies the prog suite La Mort de la Terre, twenty minutes divided into four movements: a monumental symphony where Giöbia become true architects of sound, though at the cost of losing a bit of soul. Where Acid Disorder was a carnal trip, X-ÆON is a cerebral experiment—lucid, perhaps too much so. A sumptuous and precise record, but one that risks becoming a prisoner of its own perfection.
There’s fascination, ambition, and meticulous craft here, yet also a subtle coldness born of total control that dulls emotional impulse. X-ÆON is a beautiful film, only intermittently moving: a cosmic ritual that hypnotizes more than it stirs.