Interestingly enough, the guy playing with the most subtlety is the drummer; Drury favors the percussional shadings and sinuous touches over balls-to-the-wall banging. It's one of the attributes that sets this band apart from other experimental noise bands.

"Austenized" is the first of two ballads (in the broadest sense of the word) in this cluster of clamor, and it's here where Drury's subtleties play a lead role in shaping the character of the song. At one point, Eisenbeil and Blancarte are making sounds that resemble a gaggle of grackles, and leave the listener wondering how in the heck they did that without the aid of studio technology.

"Hephaestus' Wrath" resumes the furious pace of "Blooming" that eventually gives way to Eisenbeil's shimmering guitar, which provides the canvas on which Blancarte paints with sharp strokes of his bow. "Annealed" contains an intriguing exercise in the use of amplifier buzz contrasted by the distant rumble of Drury's tom toms. At just under ten minutes, it's the shortest performance on the disc.

Solar Forge was released last month by ESP-Disk. ESP was a tiny label in the mid-sixties that became the launching pad for the careers of such whack jazz luminaries as Albert Ayler, Sonny Simmons, and Milford Graves. Eisenbeil himself had once worked with legendary free jazz percussionist Graves. Three years ago, the label came back to life and is now releasing both old and new recordings. Solar Forge is a direct continuation of the uncompromising spirit of those seminal original ESP releases.

As a bandleader, ensemble player and soloist, Eisenbeil has really emerged as a visionary leader in the NYC improvised music scene, especially in the last few years. He's earned a spot amongst Marc Ribot, Fred Frith, Henry Kaiser and Nels Cline as one of the premier avant garde guitarists out there today. Solar Forge makes a strong case for Bruce Eisenbeil to be included in that kind of company.

Ahhh, sweet, sweet cacophony...