This second album from the Chicagoan quintet – follow-up to 2017’s Decaying Orbit – finds bandleader and guitarist Dan Phillips reconvening the same gang of heavy-hitters from the Windy City to roll out another collection of decidedly tough compositions. Hamid Drake is as muscular as ever behind the drums, darting from hurtling, super-charged swing on pieces such as ‘A Pontificator’s Tale’ to the rolling rumble of an armoured steamroller on more rockish cuts like the bass-propelled ‘Non-Linear Deconstruction’. Veteran trombonist Jeb Bishop is a boisterous voice throughout, often barging saxophonist Mars Williams aside with hearty brays and sleazy smears. Meanwhile, Phillips embellishes the rough and tumble with a taut, tight electric timbre on the guitar. It’s possible to discern the influence of Peter Brötzmann’s much-missed Chicago Tentet (of which Drake, Williams and Bishop are all alumni) in the smooth transitions from tense twitch-and-fidget improv into heads-down, no-nonsense riffage. The fact that a relatively sleek five-man unit can generate that kind of muscle is pretty impressive.