Exploding Customer - At Your Service

Bruce Lee Galanter, DMG Newsletter

This is the third disc from the incredible Exploding Customer quartet, who continue to feature Martin Küchen on alto & tenor sax, Tomas Hallonsten on trumpet, Benjamin Quigley on bass and Kjell Nordeson on drums.
After two dynamite live discs, this is their first studio effort and Martin Küchen again wrote most of their pieces with one by their trumpeter, Hallonsten, and one traditional song arranged by Carla Bley.

"Goodbye Smith Town" opens and has a twisted sort of funky groove with the group shouting out the song title as a chorus. Martin has a great way of bending the notes of his tenor inside-out like Gary Windo once did or similar to the way Mats Gustafsson bends his bari sax sounds into odd fragments in The Thing.
"Let's Tear the Threads of Trust" has a great melody that sounds somewhat Masada-like (except that it is performed on tenor), a righteous middle-Eastern groove. Often it sounds as if Martin's sax is on the verge of exploding or at least distorting.

This quartet is incredible tight and each member an integral part of their great passionate sound. Each solo from Mr. Küchen is a powerful gem as is each of these memorable songs.
On "Who Serves the Servant?", I had to get up and dance, 'cause the groove was f**king fat! What I love about these guys is that they have the fun-factor completely down and in-your-face at times!
Carla Bley's arrangement of "Els Segadors" is especially heartfelt and very well done.

Without a doubt, one of the most spirited bands to emerge from Scandinavia in many, many moons.