This is Fly's second album for ECM, and displays pleasing signs of artistic growth, displayed most obviously in ensemble cohesion and perhaps more subtly in terms of the confidence they share in realising their collective identity. The result is an album of 12 original compositions generated from within the band that lend a sharper definition to their work than Sky & Country. In what is both a challenging and minimalist environment, inner contrapuntal movement and the exchange of ideas, often accomplished through brief gesture rather than grand design, often compensates for the ear's tendency to yearn for a chordal underpin of a piano or guitar. Turner's tone is immediately arresting, at variance with the majority of his saxophone playing brethren by way of his early curiosity in the approach of the Lennie Tristano school, in general, Lee Konitz in particular. Thus his well articulated lines have a certain weightlessness that allows the music to take flight, revealing itself most effectively in the spontaneously conceived ‘suite’ ‘Western Lands’ that emerges as five episodes spread through the album. Pieces such as ‘Brothersister’, ‘Diorite’ and ‘Benj’ submit to greater subtlety, where the distinction between the written and the improvised is often blurred, yet accomplished with organic unity. While Grenadier provides the fulcrum of this ensemble, the percussive density of Ballard, sometimes prone to over embellishment, entirely suits Fly by providing a force field of energy that compliments and contrasts Turner's often potent lyricism.