Metal Blade
2012
Too often when a band gets the label of metal with jazz the results are more metal than jazz and you get varying results. What if a band's music involves just drums, bass and tenor saxophone? I see the metal fans that are still reading this getting antsy already. Hold on, it's more promising then you may think. How can it be metal without guitar? The answer is the saxophone takes lead parts that you may think would be assigned to the guitar. Now there are still some unpredictable movements as well which allows the band plenty of room to show off their chops. It's interesting to hear a song begin and I think this is jazz and won't be heavy yet eventually they find a way to make it heavy and keep the bouncing feel of jazz throughout as well. They even go beyond regular arrangements and tread into the bizarre and chaotic territory at times as well. The production is all that is should be. It really brings all the sounds to the surface. The only downfall of this album is that they do run out of ideas here and there and just putter around trying to stretch the songs out. Definitely a great effort with plenty to recommend about it.
Well I gave it a listen. To tell you the truth, it sounds like the musical score to some cheesy straight-to-video Crime Drama.
ReplyDeleteTom-I think it's way better than that. I was surprised by how much I did like it. Normally metal jazz fusion isn't always my thing. This album I definitely enjoyed.
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