FIRE!

After years of also using extra instruments or augmenting to orchestral size, FIRE! contracts to a trio, with each member playing one instrument. But Testament is still a testament to why the band is creative music’s answer to a Rock power trio. Consisting of  Swedes, baritone saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, bassist Johan Berthling and drummer Andreas Werliin, all of whom juggle Fire! membership with solo and other group projects, this original configuration usually features the bassist setting the groove, the drummer complementing it with rolls and clatters and the saxophonist taking the lead guitar role.

This rather simplistic definition shouldn’t neglect the invention that goes into these tracks. Taste would be another adjective, but when it comes to Gustafsson’s soloing, there’s rarely a note that can’t be bent or a tone that can’t be fragmented. Throughout his discordant output ranges from scaling altissimo heights to screaming multiphonics, nephritic snarls that seem to emanate from different parts of his stomach or shrill vulture-like cries. All this is done as part of the layers of vibrating tension projected from the bassist’s and drummer’s actions. Practically the only respite from these bestial reed techniques is on “Four Ways Of Dealing With One Way” when the saxist outlines the theme at half speed horizontal lowing  while.

Consistent in providing a Scandinavian Funk bass line most of the time, Berthling does get to vary his rhythms on the concluding “One Testament. One Aim. One More To Go. Again”. In the latter half of the piece after a joint crescendo of tongue-burbling reed vibrations and drum press rolls, his switch to string stops, positioned thumps and moderated vibrations presages a gradual lightening and slowing of the narrative pace. Earlier on Werliin cannily backs Gustafsson’s few interludes of calmer story telling with an ambling beat emphasizing wood block thumps.

Although no one will ever mistake Fire! for a guitar oriented chamber Jazz trio, neither is the comparison to a Scandinavian Death Metal trio correct either. Avoiding the delicacy of the first’s sound and the excess for no reason of the latter, the group has established an idiosyncratic niche that mates power and perception.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Work Song For A Scattered Past 2. The Dark Inside Of Cabbage 3. Four Ways Of Dealing With One Way 4. Running Bison. Breathing Entity. Sleeping Reality 5. One Testament. One Aim. One More To Go. Again

Personnel: Mats Gustafsson (baritone saxophone); Johan Berthling (bass) and Andreas Werliin (drums)