Ravi Coltrane - From the Round Box

Is there anybody creating jazz like Ravi Coltrane today? I think not. It’s just way too easy to look at him and think of the Coltrane legacy, ignoring the fact that he’s making very relevant records. I know he can improvise from seeing him live on a couple occasions, but an album like this shows that he can write some interesting and unusual compositions, in fact a lot of this reminds me more of Andrew Hill than Coltrane. I prefer Mad 6 to this one, but then again it is later and this does feel like he’s on his way up.

The Underground Railroad - The Origins of Consciousness

Part of me really admires these guys, their compositional prowess and strong musicianship. These aspects are all in service to playing music in a style that I find a little outside of my aesthetics, in fact it’s very hard not to listen to this and think of early Echolyn. I find this a lot more musically challenging, Echolyn steered down the middle quite a bit more often and Underground Railroad like to stretch their chops on more dissonant segments. It’s very good, classy music but I think I’d have go with the 10 in that I’ve never felt particularly close to modern American symphonic rock. 

Cephalic Carnage - Anomalies

I’m hitting a wall with this album that I didn’t with Hall of Amenti or Lucid Interval and I haven’t quite figured out what it is yet. Those two albums are quite different from one another. Anomalies is closer to Lucid Interval, the full length, closer to their usual melting pot grindcore, but it’s also off on something of a new tangent and I’ve got the feeling that I either haven’t absorbed this yet or it’s not quite as good as I’m wishing it to be. I’m still hanging in with the 10, just barely.