Machacek/Garrison/Sipe - Improvision [CD]

This formidable power trio of guitarist Alex Machacek, 5-string electric bassist Matthew Garrison and drummer Jeff Sipe is impossibly intense, dripping with staggering virtuosity and fertile ideas and seething with the kind of raucous improvisational abandon that we haven't seen since the heyday of Tribal Tech. The opening track of their new album says it all: "There's a New Sheriff in Town." Machacek's mind-boggling technique is an obvious place to begin in singing the praises of this exciting new triumvirate. There is also a remarkable depth to the writing here, which comes across on harmonically sophisticated pieces like the atmospheric ballad "Very Sad," the compelling "Shona," the gentle, darkly alluring "To Whom It May Concern" and the gorgeous "Put Me Back to Sleep."