Marsupial — GENUS THYLACINUS [self-released]
Seeing as how this is the band’s fourth cd and it’s utterly brilliant, you’d think I would have heard of them before, but that just goes to show you how hard it is to keep up with things in a world filled with entirely too many bands releasing entirely too many albums. A couple of decades ago a band of this caliber would have been nationally known (if even only in hip, progressive circles) by this time, but now even great bands manage to get lost in the shuffle, especially if they are not easy to classify or market.
Hailing from Asheville, NC, this quartet combines elements of prog rock, country, jazz, and free-form improv to create a sound that fuses the best elements of these styles into something that’s both catchy and innovative yet surprisingly accessible. Their propensity for free-form jam sessions streamlined into actual songs puts them in the territory of bands like the Grateful Dead and Phish, but these guys are far more disciplined, never allowing their exploration of song structures to devolve into endless soloing, and their actual sound is closer to that of an extremely progressive country-rock band.
I normally avoid listening to bands like this because they tend toward the self-indulgent, but this band is not like those bands; they are not only all stellar musicians (the guitar tracks are particularly amazing, although I have no idea who’s doing what, since three of them play guitar), but they have a sense of restraint that’s rare for a band so drenched in progressive stylings. At times they resemble a country band weaned on King Crimson, only without Fripp’s overly academic approach and the retention of the pulsing groove that makes the best country music so rhythmically compelling. This is the sound of greatness; too bad it’s being drowned out by bands with far less talent and more marketing muscle.
