RATTLEMOUTH

Quite acoustic and energetic American take on Etron Fou Leloublan. Plenty of contouring sax sounds everywhere, slightly funky drumming, few vocals.

Every separate composition sound quite pleasant and easy accessible, some even has kind of pseudo-klezmer influence. But at the same time you will hardly find many differences between compositions, and even every single compositions sound as good material without right finish.

Melodic and enthusiastic sound from very first tunes will catch you, but very soon you will feel like you're listen same one long a bit raw composition, or rehearsals of what may be one day will be realized material. I like sax contouring sound and nice sax-drums interplays, some scratchy guitar and common atmosphere "John Zorn melted with Etron Fou Leloublan and played on minimal resource". But the feeling of unfinished and raw musical content stays near during all album's listening.

Interesting American RIO work, but hardly essential.

Fourth album four years after previous album was released. From very first moments you hear very solid sax and supporting jazz-rock band. Music is very acoustic and has its rare for nowadays "vintage" production - not too much of studio additives are on the album's sound.

Compositions are all mid-tempo, not too long, never too twisted, more melodic, a bit melancholic in moments. Some world music elements are obviously presented, but they aren't main sound's ingredient. Power trio with two sax players sounds right as power trio with two sax players!

During all the album I had that slightly nostalgic feeling - the music there isn't dated, but really sounds as played out of time - you could easily hear such sound in 70-s, 90-s or right now. According to annotation, this album includes songs from some last years band recorded for films or TV editions. Possibly, it's the reason of such effect.

Somewhere at the end of the listening I caught myself I started to like this clear sound, very precise playing, melancholic, even mellow in moments, tunes. Not the album for new sounds and rhythm searchers for sure. To be honest, even too vintage and conservative in moments. But it has it's own (sentimental) beauty, it's a bit pity compositions are not memorable enough.

In all album for more conservative listeners, a bit too safe, but at least not boring. And easy accessible one as well.

My rating is 3+.

Rattlemouth's debut album features a series of short, sharp blasts of avant prog played by a sax/guitar/bass/drums quartet with occasional vocals. The most obvious point of comparison is Etron Fou Leloublan, although it's probably more accurate to say that if EFL had been American they'd have sounded like this (in much the same way you could say that an American National Health would have sounded like The Muffins).

It's a highly listenable album which features little in the way of overdubbing or production effects; as is often the case with recent Cuneiform releases it's the sound of the band playing their instruments in a room and, well, that's pretty much it. Of course they're all extremely accomplished musicians, which helps, the playing is crisp and precise and the arrangements are complex enough to satisfy any reasonably demanding fan of avant prog and there are some inspired moments along the way. On the downside, the dynamics don't vary that much and the pieces tend to blur into one another at times. Although they have a fairly abrasive sound they never really edge into the hardcore brutality of some John Zorn projects, and they never relax into a more mellow, lyrical groove either. The vocal tracks feature some pretty imaginative Captain Beefheart or Tom Waits style stream of consciousness beat poetry, but the voice they're delivered in isn't that strong. The stand out is Lumbering Thub (the de facto title track), which is also the most effective of the three that feature vocals - the second part of the song sounds oddly like John Lydon with Public Image Ltd.

Although there are plenty of good things to say about this album, it's hard to give it a really strong recommendation. If you like Etron Fou Leloublan or Captain Beefheart you'll probably like this as well, but (for me at any rate) there's nothing truly outstanding about it.