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The Thing - Again (Trost, 2018)

New album from The Thing, their 20th. Mats Gustafsson already showed up in my ear earlier this month with Chaos Echoes, here's his punk/jazz trio. This record features three tracks, the 21-minute "Sur Face" (written by Gustafsson), Frank Rowe's "Decision in Paradise" (featuring Joe McPhee) and "Vicky Di", written by bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten. Paal Nilssen-Love rounds out the trio on drums. "Sur Face" is the meat of this record and it's a gem of a composition - it starts slow and builds with plenty of ebbs and flows to a crashing climax, with lengthy passages for Nilssen-Love and Flaten to stretch out. Flaten's solo in particular is a memorable, groove-y near call-and-response thing before Nilssen-Love takes over and eventually rains down armageddon. I wasn't too cazy about their take on "Decision in Paradise", a stretched, tense affair, and "Vicky Di" features Gustafsson on soprano sax skronking away and Flaten on electric bass. It's a good track but can't touch the pure rock fury of "Sur Face".

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