Abilene's second full-length, and first with Fred Erskine, is the album for which some critics pined when reviewing their much more mellow, spacious debut. "Three great songs, three OK ones," they said, much to our surprise (we had it as five to one in Abilene's favor). However, with Two Guns, Twin Arrows, Abilene has upped the ante, and slowly, one-by-one, laid eight aces across the table, all while maintaining a grim poker face.





Alex Dunham's bristling yet atmospheric guitar playing and the subdued, complementary trumpeting of Erskine crest atop deep grooves as bassist Craig Ackerman and drummer Scott Adamson mine soul, dub, and jazz for their subtle, fluid rhythms. At times, the players lay out behind Erskine as he glides into passages informed by Freddie Hubbard and Don Cherry before the band shifts into states of transfixing tension-and-release. At others, Abilene is more insistent than ever, coursing manically through odd-time signatures beneath acrid lead guitar and shifting rhythmic tenacity. Still, at its core, it's engaging ambient music for those who like it played with standard instrumentation. And no one does that like Abilene.