As Caine has shown for the best part of 15 years, he has a consummate command of a wide range of vocabularies, and his ability to revitalise Mahler, Jobim or Fats Waller evinces neither self-indulgence nor pretention. This bracing trio session is arguably not the match-winning entry in the pianist’s canon, but it has some grandstanding moments. The narrative that unfolds over the dozen tracks loses some appeal around the three-quarter mark, partly because the arrangements are so omni-directional as to be overwhelming. There are no wrong notes per se, but the barrage upends the balance between the tracks, a fine example of which is the gripping ‘Succubus’, where the airtight tension of the minor vamps is released by irreverently sunny shifts into a major key that explode with a chase scene flurry of whiz-bang high pitches. Caine’s understanding of the cinematic, visually suggestive qualities of jazz in which fluid flights from funk-stamped backbeat to bop-inclined swing can create interesting jumps in sensory perspective, is engaging, especially on a brief, smash ’n’ grab piece such as ‘Calibrated Thickness.’ But here the performance simply needs a touch more distillation and breathing space. Or possibly fewer songs. Had the trio maintained the high standard of the aforesaid piece throughout, Siren would have made for an excellent follow-up to 1998’s Blue Wail, which arguably remains Caine’s best recording to date. What we have here is a set marked by intermittent peaks of brilliance that bode well for the next time he and messieurs Hébert and Perowsky get back into the studio. Chances are that one day they will out-freedom jazz dance ‘Freedom Jazz Dance’ in terms of a groove that goes this way, then that, then this, then that, then faster this, faster that, with you feeling and not counting the slaloming changes.