Turbogold

Twin guitar and drums cablings bound sturdier than a suspension bridge, and more, um, suspenseful, too. Best utilization of a lap-steel in a rock context since, well, ever. Eight riveting instrumentals that come in many shades of pavement, several forms of perspiration, and the very best kind of cool. MA is driven by the fluidly interchanging leads of Gary Flom and Ben Davis, who around their guitar necks each wrap their left hand in strange strangulations to create awkward, contorting configurations. Yet Flom and Davis make it look easy. Sinister. Coolly intense. See Flom hunched over his lap steel, playing the mad scientist as he operates on his prey of strings, beads of sweat traveling their path down his cheek and dripping on the guitar laid in front of him. Check the fierce concentration on Davis’ ostensibly expressionless face as his hands move with cold, calculated precision, like those of a surgeon. Watch Adam Overton behind the kit, driving time in odd or even numbers – whatever the situationists on guitar dictate. For it is the guitarists who are exhorting time, redefining it with a constant coursing undercurrent marked by striking, arpeggiated phrasings, staccato riffs, and seething lead fretwork.