Rangda: False Flag

Label: Drag City

For once it's okay to use the "supergroup" tag. Whether or not you know their work, Sir Richard Bishop (guitar, piano; Sun City Girls), Chris Corsano (drums) and Ben Chasny (guitar; Six Organs of Admittance) are all bad muthas of the highest water. For their first trio date as Rangda (being a Balinese demon-queen, we'll credit the name to Bishop), these astral-traveling citizens of earth cut way the hell loose: "Waldorf Hysteria" launches False Flag in a detonation of free-rock guitar wizardry and multidirectional drumming, while the subsequent "Bull Lore" blends Sabbathesque dread with a blazing solo line that eventually elevates the entire six-minute piece to the top of some misty mountain. False Flag's six songs alternate in that style: free-form freakouts of a fabulously furry nature trading off with more composed pieces, showing the true inside-outside brilliance of these three dude-kings. It's no surprise that Bishop, Chasny and Corsano play so well together, but it feels like a revelation nonetheless. The closing "Plain of Jars" tracks at 15-minutes-plus, but it isn't hard to imagine the song continuing on to the vanishing point. (M.L. Thrope)