Gard Nilssen is on an exclusive list of sought-after Norwegian alt-jazz drummers that would also include The Thing’s Paal Nilssen-Love. Compared to his work with Zanussi 5, Cortex, Bushman’s Revenge and guitarist Stian Westerhus’ Puma though, Nilssen’s Acoustic Unity trio draws more from an acoustic modernist jazz lineage, albeit one that owes much to the sandblasting school of post-1960s free jazz. Live In Europe follows the superbly combustible debut, Firehouse, released in 2015, with a heavyweight 3CD ‘live’ set released on the progressive Portuguese indie Clean Feed and selected from a trio of summer festivals in 2016 at North Sea, Ljubljana and Oslo. The Berlin-based Swedish bassist Petter Eldh is known to UK audiences through Django Bates’ Beloved Bird and Andre Roligheten is a Norwegian saxophonist every bit as lyrically melodic as he is raucously feral. Shaping a personal phraseology from the vocabularies of Rollins, Coltrane, Ornette and Ayler et al, Roligheten has Eldh and Nilssen roaring him on with an invigorating bustle of swing and groove. If three discs’ worth of material, including a few compositions that features on all sets, seems like overkill, Nilssen adds interest by cranking up the collective heat with guest saxophonists on the second and third discs: the Swedish legend that is Frederik Ljungkvist enters on Ljubljana and a titanic double-fister of Kristoffer Berre Alberts and Jorgen Mathisen storms Oslo. The previous studio CD, Firehouse, might capture a sonic clarity that a ‘live’ album can’t, but this is still quite a compelling follow-up.