"Cold Bleak Heat is the East Coast's maximalist tour de force of spontaneous sound construction. It is a staggering group line-up that raises the eyes and the ante. It's Magnificent, But It Isn't War, is the debut from a subterranean assembly of today's most active: Connecticut's prevailing operator of the alto/ tenor saxophones, Paul Flaherty; the seemingly ten-handed/ footed drummer Chris Corsano (Sunburned Hand of the Man, Six Organs of Admittance), definitely today's leading light in pure spectrum propulsion; sound sculpting trumpeter Greg Kelley (nmperign, Heathen Shame), who opens into full-force gales during this session; and Earth-boom grounding acoustic bassist Matt Heyner (No Neck Blues Band, Test), whose tone/shape-shifting agility wrangles all these wild horses into one field. From the start Flaherty's combusting, scorched tone burrows into the torrential grooves with a bleating and vivid lyricism that never waivers. His 30+ years of New England horn calling is at its apex with these younger brothers-in-arms. The human electric pulse and ecstatic goal of Cold Bleak Heat keeps these four riding the lighting from end to end." |