Ascent

Forever keeping listeners guessing, Ben Chasney turns up the volume for this aggressive about-face after the moody, rootsy, and mild Asleep on the Floodplain. "Waswasa" begins on the attack, a feral guitar instrumental that takes the pointed edges of The Beatles' "Taxman," Neil Young's most anarchic moments, and the usual tonal assault of Comets on Fire and turns it into a five-and-a-half-minute blowout. "Close to the Sky" follows, with a south-of-the-border outlaw sense. The atmospheric "Visions (From IO)" evokes the Southern California Paisley Underground scene of the '80s; its ghostly vocals recall Rain Parade and Opal with its reverb-laden psychedelia. "They Called You Near" further trips out the psychedelia with guitar tones and vocals emitting from what sounds like a subway tunnel. "Solar Ascent" and "Your Ghost" dial down for the bucolic charms of acoustic guitars. However, "One Thousand Birds" and "Even If You Knew" grind with crusty fuzz guitars adding a grungy component, truer to the word "grunge" than the bands associated with the term in the '90s.