The bumbling spoken introductions to these two sets, recorded live at London's Vortex Club, do little to prepare the listener for the onslaught to come. Make no mistake, volume, power and ferocity are the driving forces of this monstrous European summit of underground free-jazz. Belgian guitarist Dirk Serries (on whose label this is released) is a crunching presence throughout, lurching from raw amp hum to taut, razorwire Sonny Sharrock-isms, to lumbering feedback straight out of the Thurston Moore manual of improv for punk dummies. These broad-brush strokes prime a sympathetic canvas for blazing histrionics from the twin saxes of Brit Colin Webster and American, Amsterdam-based, John Dikeman, who lock horns for dense, garrulous squalls and gravelly growls. Meanwhile UK drummer Andrew Lisle skilfully prevents the whole thing from descending into a baggy free-for-all with surprisingly sensitive interjections of crisp snare work and inventive tom tattoos. In fact, it's not all scorched earth roar: in the first set, a nebulous drone generated by a tanpura-like guitar dirge provokes low, fog-bound bleats from the baritone sax and misty alto harmonics. Still, if it's a honking great racket you're after, proceed directly to the second set, wherein veteran UK horn-wrangler Alan Wilkinson pitches in with characteristic enthusiasm, boosting the line-up to a quintet and tipping proceedings even further into the red.