If the 2013 debut album by Møster could be seen as an all-out audio assault on the psyche, this latest release by Norwegian sax player Kjetil Møster adopts a somewhat stealthier approach to winning hearts and minds.
A live recording, this spends a good while establishing a glowering, pensive atmosphere of shifting tonality, sulfurous distortions and refractions. Joining Møster are Motorpsycho’s Kenneth Kapstad and Hans Magus ‘Snah’ Ryan, whose caustic guitar summons up fiery, ominous rumbles and nerve-jangling shrieks against a darkly nebulous backdrop that reverberates between the mournful stateliness of Miles Davis’ He Loved Him Madly and the exotic lost world fog drifting across Pink Floyd’s Echoes. The slow build-up is entirely worthwhile as the molten core of the album erupts, generating a manic energy propelled by Nikolai Eilertsen’s galloping bass and Kapstad’s fluid drumming. The ecstatic, tumultuous climax of the 14-minute Tearatorn is but a curtain raiser for scorching closer Underworld Risk, a vertiginous ride jostled and strafed with white-hot playing and gear-crunching dynamics, like VdGG at their most potent.
