Killing Spree

Glenn Astarita, All About Jazz * * * *

Saxophonist Matthieu Metzger extends his multi-tracked applications and concepts, evidenced on Self Cooking (Ayler, 2012) with this aggressive trio format, steeped in punk jazz, free jazz, metal jazz and progressive rock. Hold on to your seats as they say because these folks will knock your socks off with a consortium of high-velocity, in-your-face metrics and astute use of electronics. Amped by a powerful, loud, and agile rhythm section, the program casts a mélange of disparate works built on doomsday overtures, speed-riffing and hyper-mode time changes. And they spice it up with treks into the free jazz realm during this LP length production.

On compositions such as "This Song Begins Like A Hit" and "Our Endless Boring Loop," the trio elicits varying degrees of psychodrama via supersonic trajectories into the jazz improv space amid power-drummer Grégoire Galichet's blasting polyrhythms and Sylvain Daniel's guerilla bass lines. At times, the artists' maniacal theme-building sorties feature sinister background treatments and Metzger's high-spirited phrasings. As the band's anarchic mode of attack tenders an enthralling plot akin to a cinematic action-thriller. And they morph foot-stomping rock movements into various pieces while offsetting any semblances of the straight and narrow, with spiraling angst and head-spinning detours.

The musicians tone it down on the two-minute ""Monde Froid," where noise-shaping mechanisms transfer into a cavernous void. Otherwise, fans of the experimental rock peripheries of saxophonist, composer, producer John Zorn's Tzadik label may appreciate Killing Spree's avant jazz and rock makeup. Indeed, this is not a risk-adverse unit. Besides all the fireworks and the respective performers' enviable technical attributes, the group carves out a well-defined and largely disciplined path of destruction on Killing Spree.