Fire! — Testament
Testament is the 8th full-length album from Swedish experimental/free jazz/psych-rock/ three piece Fire!. It’s a five-track affair that shifts between the raw blues-tinged, the bounding 'n' seared, though to the moodily angular- with a great raw and honest production courtesy of Steve Albini.
The release appears on the long-running & respected Norwegian label Rune Grammofon- been available as either a vinyl or CD- I’m reviewing the latter of these two. The disc comes presented in a fold-out digipak- which features abstract black, white and grey art that looks rather like lungs & body organ.
Fire! started in the year 2006- with the project bringing together Mats Gustafsson- baritone Sax(The Thing, etc, solo stuff), Johan Berthling- bass(Angles, etc) and Andreas Werliin( Time Is A Mountain, etc) – drums.
The five tracks featured have runtimes between five and ten minutes. The sincerity and versatility of each player shine brightly throughout the album, yet there is zero ego or showing off present- with each track built for impact, mood, and true sonic honesty.
We open with “Work Song For A Scattered Past”- starting first with a steady plodding blues-tinged bass line, then bashing ‘n’ crushing drums, and lastly low baying sax work. As we progress the whole gets more roughly rousing- with extra hiss on percussion, gusty darts to the bass, and more searing edges to the horn work.
By track number three “Four Ways Of Dealing With One Way” we’ve moved into more moody territory. As we find a blend of hazed percussive circles, loosely tolling bass, and broodingly simmering & gloomily wailing saxophone.
The album plays out with the nearing eleven minutes of “One Testament, One Aim, One More To Go, Again”. It moves from a loose improv soup of crudely bubbling ‘n’ farting horn, twitching percussion, and twanging bass tones. Onto slow stumbling, but building march of drum runs, churning bass slugs, and warbling-to-searing soaring horn work. Before once more slowly returning to its loose improv origins- but with a more pronounced blues-tinged hiss & bay to its flow.
Testament truly is a wonderfully gusty and honest record. It’s alive with shambling in-your-guts groove, felt to moody instrumental impact, and a general feeling of worn & wavering flare