Ronni Le Tekrø, "Bigfoot TV" (TBC)
One misses the Norwegian-American pop-metal band TNT less when its guitarist, Ronni Le Tekrø, puts together one of his semirare solo records. Especially when, as here, he seems to be making a special effort to hook our gills.
First comes the concept: We're listening to Ronni's own reality/sci-fi channel. Ronni's garden is haunted; he is possessed by demons. His girlfriend is a cat; his cats are aliens. Ronni is abducted by aliens, but imagine their surprise -- Ronni's an alien too. Spirits of nature are taking vengeance on us all . . . for being alien spawn? That's hardly more than half the album, though; the rest is just love and joy and regret.
And all of it is pure melodious music that falls together like the product of a well practiced Dr. Frankenstein. Le Tekrø knows so much that he naturally throws things together without thinking about it: raunchy blues with glittery confection ("Demons"), jaunty riverdance with chugging pop and clever chord substitutions ("A Handful of Time"), choppy latter-day TNT melodic modernism with drifty spacework ("U.F.O."). One could drool over the fainting minor-key torch song "The Black Rose," or the dynamic acoustic-based "Moving Like a Cat," or the syncopated soul strutter "Not Today" (with Rodmar Johansen substituting for Ronni's breathy but capable lead vocals elsewhere), but pick your own. The band rock so crisply that you almost forget about them, which in this context stands as solid praise: Drummer Henrik Fossum, keyboardist Markus O. Klyve, bassist Ove Husemoen, guitarist Jon Johannessen, vocalist Leif Knashaug, take a bow.
Le Tekrø's guitar work, as usual, ranks him with the world's topmost -- plucking ultraprecise rhythms one minute; ripping off blinding leads the next; creating riffs, melodies and obbligatos that balance the melodies like ballet dancers all the time. And while he does it, he smiles like a loon. Forgivable.
Listen/buy here.
Meshuggah, "Immutable" (Atomic Fire)
Meshuggah recorded "Immutable" in a big shed surrounded by a field, and you can actually feel the spaaace. Known for a sound like pagan armies clashing in a bog, the Swedish metalmen have mostly forsaken the claustrophobia to great effect for their first album since 2016.
It's still all about the rhythm. Drummer Tomas Haake's bizarre pounding accents make Meshuggah the only metal band that forces you to headbang SIDEWAYS, while Mårten Hagström's counterrhythmic guitar whips your chin up and down, which results in some kind of cervically menacing sign of the cross. Lead guitarist Fredrik Thordendal follows the album's theme (the immutability of human stupidity) with a series of hilariously neurotic, tail-chasing solos; Dick Lövgren's bass crawls along the bottom like tar from a leaky undersea pipeline. The barf of Jens Kidman, of course, perfectly embodies disgust via Haake lyrics such as "Behold how he devours," not forgetting that the song is titled "I Am That Thirst."
"Ligature Marks" sports the record's punchiest backfires, accented by a diabolically mocking high guitar figure. The powerful epic "They Move Below" shatters its folky introduction with a volcanic eruption as an overloaded aircraft strains to take off amid falling masses of molten stone. The biggest surprise arrives at the end with "Past Tense," a lovely Hagström guitar-only instrumental with lots of subtle changes -- a suggestion that extinct humanity will leave the gods one or two worthy memories.
"Immutable" begins with a typical Haake puzzle in "Broken Cog," as heavy rhythms switch off cleanly and music-headed slobs are tempted to figure 'em out. But they'll get over it and settle into the movie. Counting is no fun.