Speech of Species

This follow-up to Belgian quartet Echoes Of Zoo's 2021 debut Breakout is, by all accounts, a concept album exploring the various ways animals communicate with each other. But, other than the track titles, you'd never know it. Instead, what you get is another instrumental mash-up of punkish rock moves with vaguely Middle Eastern and Balkan modes and rhythms. Tenor saxophonist and composer Nathan Daems certainly has an ear for a sinuous melody and on tracks like the reverb-heavy, dub-wise opener, ‘Bee Jive’, he spins a convincing yarn with a touch of the sweet sadness of Ethiopian saxmen such as Getatchew Mekurya. On ‘Bioluminescence’, he's even more lachrymose, summoning the weeping swoons of Greek clarinettist Tassos Chalkias over a throbbing electric bassline and loose jam-band drums. Elsewhere, it's guitarist Bart Vervaeck who takes the reins. On tracks like ‘Quarter Tone Starlings’, he cranks out gnarly microtonal riffage with an air of sneering menace while, on pieces like the title-track, he seems to pick up where ex-Sun City Girls string-wrangler Sir Richard Bishop leaves off, accentuating the Arabic influences Lebanese-American innovator Dick Dale brought to surf guitar music, and suggesting a totally tubular hang in the Persian Gulf. Pretty Neat.