One of the joys of being in a jazz band \u2013 or any instrumental group for that matter \u2013 must surely be that you get to frame your compositions with a slew of offbeat, enigmatic titles. Swedish trio Fire! certainly don\u2019t disappoint on The\u00a0<\/i>Hands<\/i>, their sixth album.<\/p>\n
We can only speculate as to the inspiration for the piece When Her Lips Collapsed… A traumatic first date? A misjudged papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 tribute to Kate Bush? With lung-worrying sax and a slow, blues-doom swagger, it sounds like a sluggish but unwavering elephant on the warpath.<\/p>\n
This particular troupe doesn\u2019t restrict itself to jazz. In fact, from opening track The Hands, you\u2019d be hard pressed to identify them as such, save for the squawking sax and rhythmic finery.<\/p>\n
They may be jazz musicians, but their jazz hats aren\u2019t always on, and are often being doffed to other genres; most notably rock, psych and blues. Sax powerhouse Mats Gustafsson is known for his multi-genre collaborations, having worked\/performed with the likes of Zu, Otomo Yoshihide, Jim O\u2019Rourke and Sonic Youth.<\/p>\n
Comparisons to Cream and early Black Sabbath are not ill-founded, but perhaps a little misleading. The trio\u2019s \u201crock\u201d aesthetic is made satisfyingly supple by the deft, jazz-borne drumming of Andreas Werliin, and bassist Johan Berthling spins some quite doomy webs, but the overall impression is of something quite apart from these two sets of forebears. To Shave The Leaves\u2026 reminds of latter-day Earth, Zu and B\u00f6hren & Der Club Of Gore, while Washing Your Heart In Filth has shades of psych, afrobeat, and even a hint of voodoo.<\/p>\n
Ducking clich\u00e9s in taking a different approach, Fire! could be seen to be freeing up free jazz. Nice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the joys of being in a jazz band \u2013 or any instrumental group for that matter \u2013 must surely be that you get to frame your compositions with a slew of offbeat, enigmatic titles. Swedish trio Fire! certainly don\u2019t disappoint on The\u00a0Hands, their sixth album.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8023,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,16],"tags":[],"issue":[10093],"class_list":["post-193410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album","category-reviews","issue-january-2018"],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n