Black Rock (2012)

After the war-torn years of constant lyricist changes, constant critic fire in the recycled last albums, Black Sabbath has never exactly had the greatest of careers, but it left one hell of an aftermath. Almost as a calm after the storm, Sabbath has been consistently referred to as one of the greatest metal bands of all time, if not THE best, for, in a highly cataclysmic style, introduced heavy metal, completely attacking the scene. Sabbath is an example of a band that continues to draw endless fans, even after their downfall…

With critics and listeners seemingly already in their corner, San Diego classic space/prog five-piece Astra make a Moog-heavy sophomore outing in the form of "The Black Chord". Astra won many ears to their side with 2009’s Rise Above debut, "The Weirding", on which they offset retro King Crimson-style melodies with a sense of modern urgency that indeed also shows up throughout the six tracks of the second album. It’s Astra’s balance of old and new that makes their recorded output so fascinating, and as the US has become even more enamored of all things taggable as progressive and/or psychedelic in the last three years - at least in an underground sense – The Black Chord arrives at just the right time and in just the right place for the band to be able to make the most of their songwriting…

Pianist Misha Piatigorsky and Chris Wabich colead Sketchy Black Dog, a hybrid jazz piano trio and string quartet that specializes in proudly pyrotechnic renderings of Bowie, Hendrix and other classic-rock favorites.

Black Radio, the title of the Robert Glasper Experiment's proper Blue Note debut, is a double signifier. There's the dictionary's definition: "the device in an aircraft that records technical data during a flight, used in case of accident to discover its cause." And there's Angelika Beener's in her liner essay. She defines Black Radio as "representative of the veracity of Black music" which has been "…emulated, envied and countlessly re-imagined by the rest of the world…." With jazz as its backbone, Glasper, drummer Chris Dave, bassist Derrick Hodge, and Casey Benjamin on reeds, winds, and vocoder, cued by the inspiration of black music's illustrious cultural past, try to carve out a creative place for its future…