It starts with sticks, and then into a big fat meaty sax riff before the cacophony truly begins. A bellowing, honking, spittling, spurting, throat-ripping calamitous lump of sound from Mats Gustafsson's abused saxophone. The rhythm section isn't content to play keep-up. Ingebright Haker Flaten's double bass sprays volleys of notes, weaving, a palpitating pulse through vibration. Paal Nilssen-Love kicks his drums down the stairs of a high-rise building in the most precise manner possible. This is The Thing's fourth album in their ongoing voyage to marry the aesthetics of garage-rock n'roll together with the sheer pure ecstasy of free-jazz. It’s a place where Lightning Bolt rightfully sit next to Ornette Coleman, where past conceptions of jazz are bent out of shape with a trio so raw you can smell them. It's what jazz should be today, just the way I like it. |