Drummer/composer Dylan Ryan might lead the band, but he continues to place the phenomenal talents of guitarist Timothy Young front and center on 2014's Circa, the sophomore Cuneiform label album by Ryan's Sand trio. Like Sky Bleached, Sand's 2013 debut, the trio's second outing is an electric guitar tour de force, with Young displaying deeply creative fretwork over the solid backing of Ryan and bassist Devin Hoff. Once again, Ryan proves himself to be a highly inventive percussionist, but the blindfolded listener might still presume this is Young's band until peeking at the cover and seeing Ryan's name there, and also noticing that the drummer composed six songs and gets a co-composer credit, with his bandmates, for three other improvisation-based tracks. Ryan gives opener "Trees, Voices, Saturn" a seven-beat pulse, engaging and then pulling back from Hoff's steady vamp as Young waxes atmospheric with long, ringing notes and chords mixing just the right helpings of twang and gravel. The guitarist's tone -- balanced somewhere between country and post-grunge -- dirties up the proceedings, but it's not hard to imagine that the theme Ryan penned for Young could also be scored for horns in a tight little jazz-rock combo. And as Ryan and Hoff jam away beneath Young, who cuts loose with burning sustain in a nearly psychedelic solo, Sand summon up the ghosts of classic improvising guitar-bass-drums trios from decades past -- minus any indulgences, however, since the tune is over in scarcely more than four and a half minutes.

1		Trees, Voices, Saturn
2		Possession
3		Sledge Tread
4		Visionary Fantasy
5		Pink Noir
6		Mortgage On My Soul
7		Slow Sculpture
8		Low Fell
9		Night Sea Journey
10		Raw Rattle