MoRbO is an odd album, but then, this is an odd band. The Italian three-piece has been around for over six years now, and although this is my first listen to their odd formula of mechanically technical sludge-rock (beamed directly in the heads of anonymous members Lin, Lan and Len from their alien master, according to the band’s legend) it’s enough to make me feel immediately familiar with Morkobot. Imagine a small team of robots trying to replicate a Primus album with a complete and utter lack of vocals, emotions, or human understanding of what they are hearing, and you’re partway there, although the sheer hypnotic quality of MoRbO is hard to describe without hearing it. Like the working of some vast, cosmic, machine, the bassy rumbles and oddly subliminal melodies are repetitive and rhythmic to an annoying degree, but if you let the music work its robotic magic on you, then it starts to become strangely catchy...

...and it’s your tolerance for music this odd that will ultimately determine how much you enjoy the experience that MoRbO provides. There are no songs in conventional terms, the various named tracks seeming rather samey on first listens but starting to show the barest hints of individual personality on subsequent tries. Opening track Ultramorth is probably the best, with its chuggering swagger and machine boops and whistles that form an uncanny industrial clamour of life – everything else feels like a lesser echo of the track, from then on. Perseverance furthers, however, as it’s when the music drops in heaviness and turns strangely jazzy on the second half of the nine-minute MoR that you really see the skills of the members. Being perfectly honest I’d have liked to see more of this quiet, sober, weirdness, as the general robot-stoner vibe can get tiresome easily. That’s where the band should concentrate next, I think – although what their unique message will preach on their next voyage, only mighty Morkobot himself can tell. Leave your brain at the door, in a good way.