Some reflectable sounds from the last few months.
Cuong Vu 4tet, "Change in the Air" (Rare Noise). Aah, breathe. Trumpeter Vu teams with guitar master Bill Frisell, bassist Luke Bergman and drummer Ted Poor for Ellingtonian sensuality and rarefied electronic melancholy. The songs sound like songs, with Poor (Ben Monder, Chris Potter) composing the richest examples and everyone playing as if at ease in your living room, brandy snifters at elbow.
Rich Halley 3, "The Literature" (Pine Eagle). Portland tenor man Halley tells you about his favorite jazz, using his chesty horn instead of words. Boiled down to trio essentials with bassist Clyde Reed and drummer Carson Halley, the classics of Monk, Duke, Mingus and Ornette tumble across the speakers with casual spontaneity, and you hear them anew.
Allen Ravenstine, "Waiting for the Bomb" (Recommended Records). Pere Ubu's principal atmospherist takes you on 18 short instrumental excursions through contrasting soundscapes. Wondrous synth textures drift; harmonies tangle in gentle menace; now and then an old-timey trumpet or piano reminds you that this is "music." The radical stereo field rewards headphones, oh yeah.
Arsis, "Visitant" (Nuclear Blast). Few orchestrate modern metal like guitarist James Malone, who can make a four-piece sound like a symphony. Classical influences do abound in this hard-shredding horror-flick tribute, while never forsaking the crazed gallop and triumphal slaughter essential to Malone's passionate vision. Superbly recorded by Mark Lewis (DevilDriver, Black Dahlia Murder, Cannibal Corpse).
Obscura, "Diluvium" (Relapse). In a genre (prog metal) founded on technical precision, German 7-string guitarist Steffen Kummerer still manages to stand out for machine-tooled supertwiddle heroics. Kummerer's rasping & clean vocals deliver tension & spookiness, while drummer Sebastian Lanser maintains the drive no matter what stop-starts and time-signature revisions the occasion demands. Surprise: The result is way more dramatic than eggheaded.
TNT, "XIII" (Frontiers). You can't lose a singer like Tony Harnell and not miss his peerless range, compositional deftness and lyric depth. But with marginal help from Harnell, guitarist Ronni Le Tekro crafted an album packed with creatively structured pop-metal gems, including the masterpieces "Not Feeling Anything," "Can't Breathe Anymore" and "Tears in My Eyes." The always brilliant Le Tekro's patented chord substitutions and crazily inspired solos rise to new levels, and the subliminal heavy groove of drummer Diesel Dahl and bassist Ove Husemoen flogs your ass like a kelp whip. Despite a few moments of clumsy bathos, new Spanish singer Baol Bardot Bulsara bursts with versatility, power and skill. This one won't take long to grow on you.