Having played with practically everybody who is anybody on the highly competitive New York jazz scene over the last quarter century and appeared on almost 80 albums, Seamus Blake can officially put in for his ‘been there, done that’ t-shirt. He's now relocated to Europe, and after a successful tour with three top young French musicians, Guardians of the Heart Machine is a musical photograph in time of the state of the art of this highly-rated tenor saxophonist. The verdict is that he's in a good place – the core of his style is a strong melodic sense that guides the internal logic of his well crafted improvisations on pieces like ‘I'm OK’, ‘Sneaky D’, ‘Betty in Rio’ and ‘Blues for the Real Human Beings’ – the latter also showing off pianist Tony Tixier (who also shows up well on his own album Life of Sensitive Creatures, also on Whirlwind Recordings). He also finds time to work in the edgy ‘Lanota’ (an emordnilap of atonal), while the title-track sees the saxophonist zipping through a series of interesting changes. An accomplished, strikingly original voice, Blake deserves to be heard, and his relocation to Europe will surely serve to raise his profile.