Drummer Teun Verbruggen's Bureau of Atomic Tourism proved their explosiveness on Second Law of Thermodynamics, the sextet's 2011 Rat Records debut recorded live during a European tour that year. Thankfully, engineer Dieter Claes had the tape rolling during BOAT's 2013 European tour -- the result being the band's incendiary sophomore outing, 2014's Spinning Jenny. Four of these six tracks were recorded at AMR in Geneva, Switzerland, but the opener, trumpeter Nate Wooley's "Back to My Steel," is from Ermitage in Paris. It begins with Andrew D'Angelo (on bass clarinet) and Wooley in subdued mode over the careful and considered pulse of bassist Jasper Stadhouders, but this is merely a precursor to a tense buildup into free-blowing cacophony from the horns, with Stadhouders and Rhodes player Jozef Dumoulin lumbering below as Verbruggen slashes through the middle. The energy and pace escalate until everyone bashes into a monstrous pounding theme that collapses into fragmented noise as Marc Ducret's inimitable guitar pulls out of the fray. Ducret's emergence in the track's ragged conclusion provides a fitting link to "Canon" -- recorded at Recyclart in Brussels -- the first of his three compositions here. The guitarist's unaccompanied intro leaps from dirty blues-informed and funked-up picking to rapid-fire assaults, wide-interval leaps, and swooping distorted glissandi before the other bandmembers join him in a noisy collaboration that slowly permutes into animated riffing. The ensemble winds itself into ever tighter precision, Ducret and Wooley locking in and then suddenly dropping out to reveal Stadhouders, Verbruggen, and Dumoulin rumbling beneath D'Angelo's blistering yet soulful alto sax solo; the dynamic falls and then rises to a startlingly abrupt finish.

	Like us on Facebook
	@SoundHound	Follow