The threesome comprise Dave Archer, the keyboardist founder, together with drummer Matt Hankle and the delightfully named bass player Mr Grin. This is the latest of several new bands I've reviewed from this New York music collective and I have to say the standard is pretty good. Again we have a free-thinking adventurous band who have some easily pinpointed influences but blend many of them in a distinctive way. This short 6 track instrumental album starts with a deceptively metronomic keyboard which is rapidly joined by a thundering bass and drums creating a lumbering beast which is attacked by shots of virulent sound effects and trinkets of keyboards figures. The track becomes gradually more edgy with guitar-synth raking over the heavy bass lines before a drum break takes the tempo down to a light jazz feel with Rhodes piano accompaniment as the bass and drum fade into the background slightly.
In "Homeschool" the acerbic midi-guitar is the dominant feature in the opening phase but the closing section sets up a funky drum and bass groove below some playful synth squelches to re-emphasise the crossover between jazz and rock where this album has its roots. "Disorder" has a looser structure with a simple bass figure providing the foundation for a spacey psychedelic concoction which occasionally has its frantic moments of panic. As the track develops toward the road-traffic-accident of an ending, the bass and midi-guitar grinding remind me very much of parts of King Crimson's Starless and Bible Black album.
The chill-out title track demonstrates that the band can also be cool and soothing and play almost as a classic jazz trio. The band even resist the temptation to let the rising middle section get out of control. Not so on "Bad Lieutenant" where you are in the thick of the fray from the start although to do the ideas justice, it is perhaps the one track where a real guitar would have helped. Humping basswork, bouncing drum rolls and fills and a psychotic set of keyboard arrangements create an intimidating, yet electrifying mood. You feel like you've walked into a bombed out nuclear reactor with everything around you sparking and fizzing and computers out of kilter, screaming warnings and bad decisions at you. Brilliant and scintillating, its the best piece on the album for me.
The final track, "The Grind" starts with an eerie, lost feel with clever use of space, reverb and hollow distortion effects. It thickens in density before lapsing away to a minimalist exit. Quite a piece of work this album; actually, for once, the promoter's blurb isn't far off – "Industrial jazz rock, Nine Inch Nails meets fusion Miles, King Crimson meets Stevie Wonder, Eddie Van Halen castrates Medeski Martin and Wood with a rusty can."
Track Listing
1. Moron pills
2. Homeschool
3. Disorder
4. The sweet life
5. Bad lieutenant
6. The grind
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