Shot Through With Beauty

It's a compliment to 'Shot Through with Beauty' that the music the quartet makes seems deeper (not louder) than what you'd expect from four players. Yet it's not assertive thrashing, but exploratory music, often probing. And the quartet is capable of both great assertiveness (on the first track) and serenity (on "Con Alma")--and combinations ( on Joun Scofield's "The Beatles," which manages to summon up some of that group's roaming and simplicity at once, and on the title track, which seems to proceed by layering). Cerebral music but with an extroverting air.