Dedicated to Richard Turner, the young trumpeter too soon taken from us, Dirty & Beautiful Vol. 2 finds Husband delivering more of the brilliant, ballsy music that lit up Vol. 1. The format remains familiar, although there's no Steve Topping this time around: Husband doubles on drums and keyboards, playing behind a host of guitar luminaries, with the noble exception of Sean Freeman's lustrous sax. Husband's writing is again to the fore, setting up a vicious sounding Ray Russell on ‘If Animals Had Guns Too’, or letting Stern run amok on ‘Rolling Sevens.’ It sounds like the opportunity for endless shredding, but most of these cuts are tightly shaped, Husband the arranger being as prevalent as Husband the composer and multiinstrumentalist. Holdsworth and McLaughlin sound rejuvenated (though still can't get dragged into the studio together, there must be some law against three Yorkshire-men ripping it up as one) and in between the mayhem, there's one of those classic Husband keyboard fantasia's, the mesmerising ‘Fugie.’ Let's hope we can get dirty and beautiful one more time.