Anger Artist is a live-wire document that turns volatility into architecture

On their first recording in nearly three years, the Washington, D.C. “not-jazz” quartet tightens its hybrid language into something muscular, strange, and fully self-possessed.

I hear Anger Artist as FIASCO! becoming more decisive without losing its appetite for combustion. Their first recording in nearly three years, and first release for Unit Records, was captured live in a single room with instruments, amps, drums, electronics, and bodies, and that choice gives the album a breathing, high-wire tension I can feel in every turn. On “Golden Parachute,” the band slips from altered electronics into a throbbing, blues-leaning charge. The title track, "Anger Artist", pushes abstract guitar, bass, drums, and saxophone into a funk-prog overload, and “Content” lets an odd-meter pulse dissolve into a more lyrical, simmering improvisation.

For me, the real achievement is balance. FIASCO! sound volatile and frayed, but never directionless. The record’s six pieces move between muscular rock energy, electronic interference, and open-ended improvisation, yet the group never loses its grip on shape or momentum. I came away hearing a band with sharper instincts, deeper trust, and a much clearer command of its own “not-jazz” vocabulary.

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