Benin-raised guitarist Lionel Loueke’s 2008 Blue Note debut album, Karibu, sounded fresh, if a little unformed. This studio-live reunion with bassist Massimo Biolcati and drummer Ferenc Nemeth opens a powerful new Loueke chapter, in which African-angled world-music, jazz and rock blend seamlessly. The band switch between Hendrix-like wails, kora-like chimes and power-trio rock in a blink, and the songs are consistently strong. They unceremoniously enter with treble-chord explosions and crunching percussion as if breaking down a door; metallic African polyrhythms, hard-rock chords and a backbeat slap mingle with the singing melody of Sleepless Night; a bluesy terseness suggestive of John Scofield colours the slower pieces; Loueke’s surefooted improvising is varied by violin-like or organ-mimicking sounds; and Biolcati’s percussion effects on the electric bass are startling. The trio sound like a jam-band here, but one with a unique, accessible, exciting and still-evolving identity.
