Testament is the eighth long-player from Scandinavian trio Fire! (saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, bassist Johan Berthling, and drummer Andreas Werling). Recorded over three days with Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in Chicago, the five track, 38-minute set finds the power trio sans electronics, flutes, keyboards, and overdubs. They recorded the music here live in the studio to analog tape. This is a logical extension of the music Fire! explored with 2021s Defeat. It is profoundly rhythmic, driven by minimal yet circular beats from Werling and Berthling. The tempo on much of this is slower, with darker, moodier, and creepier textures. Opener "Work Song for a Scattered Past" is introduced by a repetitive bassline and shuffling snare. Gustafssons baritone sax doesnt enter until a minute in, and even then its with roiling drones; the rhythm section increases tension and groove without altering cadence. Halfway in, Gustafsson begins soloing, blowing the guts out of his horn atop the vamp. "Four Ways of Dealing with One Way" sounds improvised at inception, with saxophone, rolling tom-toms and snares, flailing kickdrum and cymbals. Berthlings bassline is created from one-note patterns, pushing and droning the continuous evocation of patterned notes until the four-minute mark. There he begins making long, sustained single lines into new harmonic shards. "Fire -- Running Bison Breathing Entity Sleeping Reality" is introduced by Werling and Gustafsson riffing on the blues. A syncopated five-note bass pattern sets up the saxophonist to underscore his lines, then moves them aside to explore the overtones in the vamp-like melody. It creeps and crawls until the five-minute mark when Gustafsson allows his baritone to answer the slurring rhythms with explosive rippling lines composed of only a few notes. The honking sax meets entwined bass and drums in a nocturnal, funky, fun house swirl. Its a dance jam, but one more geared to a knife fight than a club floor. Closer "One Testament One Aim One More to Go Again" is the sets longest selection at over ten minutes. There isnt a rhythmic pulse per se until two minutes in. Bassist and saxophonist explore one anothers lines in terse, broken conversation, elongated notes, and haunted phrases. The pace is seemingly random, broken, and nightmarish. Even as Gustafsson ramps up his horn to solo, his rhythm section plays at one another rather than with one another, but the jam never gets crowded. The elgiaic tone, groaning baritone sax, and rolling, clattering snares and cymbals are held in check (mostly, anyway) by the syncopated bass pulse. The final third, while darkly beautiful, is more suggestive than assertive; the trio explore fractured blues phrasing with drones and restraint that eventually whisper to a close. In the past, these men added players, instruments, and more from the outside to investigate their musics insides. Here, they scrape back the excesses to reveal a deliberately tempered yet abundant and resonant creative power thats likely been there all along. ~ Thom Jurek

Rovi