This is a pretty amazing release. It’s definitely jazz based, but there is a healthy helping of freeform weirdness at play. While I’d say that it shares some common ground with the Rock in opposition movement, this manages to be more accessible than that implies. Call it what you like, but this is art music with a lot of range and style.

Starting on horn, this drives out into a powerhouse off-kilter, fusion-like jam that definitely has hints of Frank Zappa. This is a real powerhouse. It has some screaming hot jamming as it continues to evolve. It’s packed full of cool twists and turns.

This is another potent jazz number. While it’s perhaps a little more on the mainstream jazz end of the spectrum, it’s still got plenty of fusion angles. If anything, this is even stronger than the opener was.

Now, this is much more on the freeform, freaky side of the equation. It’s also exceptionally strong and powerful. Weird as it is, this might be my favorite piece of the opening three. There is a real spacey angle to this at times.

A bass solo gets things underway here and holds it for almost two-and-a-half minutes. Then they drive out with some powerhouse jamming that is pretty crazed and left-field. It gets particularly intense at times.

This has some spacey weirdness mid-track, but in some ways it is one of the most mainstream things here. It’s also very effective. In fact, I’d consider it one of the standouts here.

This is frantic, furious and so cool. It’s a driving screamer of a song, while still maintaining its jazz basis.

The first half of this is sedate. It’s still freeform, but it’s just less intense. Then it all shifts to louder music that sounds like it belongs in the soundtrack to some horror movie.

We’re back into fierce jamming territory on this thing. It’s one of the hottest pieces of music on the disc.

I like this one a lot. It has a great balance between more mainstream and experimental jazz stylings. It turns toward some cool space at the end to take us out.