A fresh blast of punky avant-garde Better You Don’t provides the shock of the new. And welcome it is too.
For fans of drummer Jim Black’s work with acts like Tim Berne’s Bloodcount and Endangered Blood and bands like the Ornette Coleman influenced Mark Holub’s band Led Bib (incidentally touring lots soon), this at times brutally swaggering 4 piece harnesses a lineup that provides an open framework for sonic exploration but the structures have a practically cartoon like profile and easily discernible outline graphic in its intensity and like a grappling hook on you viscerality. Black is joined by the squally hard hitting Asger Nissen on alto saxophone, not to be outdone in the ferocity department by Julius Gawlik on tenor saxophone and somehow keeping the beat tethered Felix Henkelhausen on bass. Recorded at the Hansa Studios in Berlin there’s plenty of pushing and shoving impact found on the high-octane tracks. But it’s not all virile swordsmanship by any means. But neck all this back like it’s a line of shots for maximum effect.
