The Thing- Boot! (2013)

The Thing- Boot! (2013)

Mats Gustafsson`s sax is like a living creature, a hideous one, a monstrous one, a primitive one, it screams, barks and growls, it’s a scary thing, but one that the mighty Mats has learned to control to his complete advantage, like those cobra enchanters, or the bear trainers, they fight to make their beasts obey them, knowing that the wild beasts have no word and can attack them any time, they risks their lives the same way Mats does with his instrument, he has been known to bleed the hell out of his mouth and throat while playing.

Wow! Listening to India (a John Coltrane tune), the first theme on The Thing new record Boot! One seems to get the idea of what Black Sabbath would have sounded if instead of Tony Iommi`s powerful guitar riffs, they would include horns, here, The Thing sounds very heavy, very slow and very dense, and at the same time creepy, the same way a noisy improvisation by Jimi Hendrix used to sound, that noisy, creepy and cosmic stuff, and yet, they remain a free jazz trio, but the extreme of their volume definitely puts them closer to hardcore punk or extreme heavy metal, thus amplifying the reach of their music, and making them one of the most innovative and prolific acts in the European free jazz and live improv scene, Boot! Finds The Thing taking on known free jazz tunes, but talking about covers would be superfluous when one is talking about The Thing, they reinvent the stuff, they radically remake it, making the theme something completely different or outside out of the original.

Reboot is powerful, voracious, Mats sounds really wild here, uncontainable, reminding us of the enormous Peter Brotzmann, whom Gustafsson may have no trouble recognizing him as a predecessor to his school of free jazz brutality, the bass, played by Ingebrigt Haker Flaten grinds with ferocious power, almost like Haker Flaten taking inspiration from the powerful noise duo Lightning Bolt, while always amazing, Paal, Nilssen Love is all over his drums, fast and light, and then at the same time slow and precise, in an amazing song, which the band takes from its jazz context into pure brutal and extreme music territory, the dialogue between the members of the trio is remarkable, full of electricity and spastic moments, pure fire and dynamics pulsating and reacting in agitate ways, pure convulsion of the soul no apt for the weak.

Haker Flaten takes the spot on Heaven, they sound bruised on the tune, with Nilssen Love sympathetic companion, the band chance fast the mood and they get into darkness and shadows for a nocturnal jazzy tune, they, unlike some free jazz band really know how to groove and how to caught their audience with repetition up to certain extent, they create a version of the original tune that really crawls into one ear and soul, the tune is a powerful one and Mats puts pure muscle into it, while the rest lay a very solid base, indestructible, a horrible and monstrous creature impossible to be stopped, is this really Heaven or are we in hell?

One can imagine hardcore at its more noisy and wild at the beginning of Red River, unusual for a jazz trio, The Thing loves noise and distortion, they like to use electricity and feedback at their favor, and if this wasn’t enough they once again lay a totally effective groove, full of raw power, one to whom no speakers are enough to reproduce, the trio sounds glorious and invincible, and although they like to spread chaos, they are intelligent and capable enough to put it quickly under their control with pure brute force.

By Boot! We are faced with a slow and grinding tune that may sound something like the Melvins with a saxophone, lurking and menacing, a great tune with a very amazing and powerful work by Nilssen Love, who hits brutally his drums, while Mats sticks to an almost funeral evoking melody, a very tortuous atmosphere, toxic to the very bone, the record ends with more intensity, as distortion shake us at the beginning of the end, a tune called Epilog, were Haker Flaten and Mats trade pure electricity in a furious dialogue that sends chills down the spine, as old Pantera used to say, a very vulgar display of power, the work of a genius set free, and then, the entrance of Nilssen Love explodes and impulses the tune to the skies, Nilssen Love is enormous here, with lightning fast drum rolls and intense tom work, a true force of nature busting at our faces, all this while Mats sets everything on fire with his tortured sax, Mats releases the beast and lets the chaos reign supreme, this after all is The Thing universe, a powerful and brutal, one of irrepressible fury, one that puts even the more extreme heavy metal to shame, this is pure and unaltered raw power at its best.