UNDER THUNDER & FLUORESCENT LIGHTS

On their extraordinary self-titled release from 1997, the Chicago-based trio Storm and Stress did what few bands even attempted in the late 1990s: an avant-rock/jazz fusion. Storm and Stress was a record that thrived on the margins--barely coherent outbursts of guitar-drums-bass collapsed into twitchy, rock-based free jazz. So dynamic was the music that the band seemed barely in control. While amps hummed and bucked amidst the confusion, they seemed more like awed spectators than scrupulous technicians. On Under Thunder and Fluorescent Lights, the band has pulled in the reins for an effort that is more restrained but no less curious. While the manic energy of the debut may be lacking, Thunder is still deliciously peculiar. The guitars are not played so much as they are stumbled into, the drums don't keep time so much as they tumble down stairs, the bass has an arrhythmic heartbeat. Where the debut was a series of collisions, Thunder is a tangle of almost-melodic knots. Tension is released not in fits and starts, but in a slow flickering florescence. Storm and Stress certainly are not writing pop songs on Thunder, and their ties to rock and jazz are even more tenuous on this effort. What's left is a band that's self-defining, although with enough compelling touch points to allow them to be post-anything. On Thunder they have produced a record that requires repeated listening and surrenders new meanings every time. --S. Duda