Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
The move sure feels intentional, as Håker Flaten sticks exclusively to electric bass (deploying a nasty distorted tone that frequently erupts in clouds of acidic feedback and fuzzed-out mayhem), and while the album is mostly original material (along with the take on “India” and one of Duke Ellington’s “Heaven”), the jackhammer beats of Nilssen-Love and the snarling bass grooves continue to sound a lot like rock music. Those rhythms remain flexible, with ever-morphing accents, displacements, and tempo shifts, but when the syncopated hand claps kick in during the final moments of “Reboot,” I’m reminded of “Shot Down” by the Sonics, where the most primitive of rhythmic devices makes the song work (naturally, the Thing has previously covered tunes by that Seattle protopunk band). Gustafsson is credited with multiple horns here, but it’s baritone and bass saxophones that dominate, the better to produce guttural, muscular lines that continually explode in impressive volleys of split tones and screeching harmonics. It says something about the energy Gustafsson and Håker Flaten produce when Nilssen-Love doesn’t especially stand out for his aggression (he’s a monster here, as usual). While Boot! is the least subtle album the Thing has ever made, I have a hard time believing that the group will remain in this grimy, low-end zone for long. You never know what any given live performance will yield, and no matter how much feel, love, and knowledge this trio has for hard rock and punk, they are dyed-in-the-wool improvisers. That quality will never go away.
Today’s playlist:
