Album Review

trioVD – Maze

• 18th May 2012

This one is … different.

Now I know that needs a bit of explanation, but I’m not sure I could ever do justice to this album with mere words. I have simply never heard anything quite like this before. Ever.

To quote their website: “trioVD are unlike any other band on the planet. Their music cannot be described without juxtaposing one genre with another equally as far flung in polar opposition.”

So very true. It seems to me like you start with a jazz improv base. Add in a great guitar sound that many heavy metal bands would love to have. Throw some feverish drumming into the mix. And sprinkle liberally with a saxophone that at times makes sounds no other sax has ever achieved. Then you come somewhere close to describing this experimental album.

It really shouldn’t work as a musical concept. But somehow Christophe de Bezenac (alto sax and electronics), Chris Sharkey (guitars) and Chris Bussey (drums) make it work, and with some style too. Even when the music sounds, well weird really, there is no doubting the skills of the musicians involved.

The album is only 36 minutes long in total; there are no vastly extended tracks here. They run from the 27 seconds of saxophone play in Bee to the 5:55 of the closer, Pet Shop Boys, which features excellent bursts of riffing guitar mixed in between seventies prog rock sounds with a great bass line.

The opening Brick chugs along at a fine pace, the sax bursting into life here and there while a repeated “one, two, three, four” makes it feel like a march. And the drums set intricate rhythms that ensure the pace stays high. Another track, Morse, has staccato bursts that could well mean something in Morse code – anything is possible on this album – and also manic French-sounding vocals deep in the background.

Going back to the band’s website, it states that, “trioVD are the jewel in the leftfield crown of LIMA (Leeds Improvised Music Association).”

Left field really doesn’t begin to describe the sonic assault that these three musicians have created. The ten tracks that make up Maze are truly unique. But you know what? It does you good to listen to something different every now and then. And it doesn’t come any more different than trioVD.