4 out of 5

Label: In Situ

Produced by: Nil/Resplendent (recorded by, mixed by)

By the time of The Fire Show’s third album, though there were plenty of collaborators, it had moreso become a two-person art project – the work of M. Resplendent (Michael Lenzi) and Olias Nil (Seth Cohen) – if still somewhat leashed to the angular rock origins of FS, which could be tracked back to Lenzi’s / Cohen’s previous outing in Number One Cup. That mix of influence / intentions made for a very dense and difficult disc. Rewarding, but nonetheless: it comes with a learning curve, and still sounds like a curiosity today.

“Lesser Free Trade” is by no means radio friendly, but it has a long enough pause since the last Fire Show disc (noting that these two musicians have been plenty busy otherwise during that time) to allow for Nil and Resplendent to reteam and refocus, stripping away some of the more mystifying affectations of the band and drill down on the beats and melodies and themes that were at its core. While it wouldn’t be wrong to consider this another FS album, it is also different enough to warrant the name change, even if those grooving bass lines, the chilly percussion, and Lenzi’s unmistakable voice are wholly intact.

Picking up, then, from Saint, Lesser Free Trade finds Nils and Resplendent stripping things down to gentler iterations of guitar, bass, drums and keys, with Brian Deck assisting on mixing and maintaining a somewhat definingly electronic edge to the production. Beats lope along but keep the rhythm tight; melodies drift more than rock, but there’s still a clear hook with every song, leaning into a krautrock sense of repetition that works especially well with this formula.

…To a point, I’d say. Most of the tracks drift a little long when applying this, but it also allows room for Nil/Resplendent to organically work through how their compositions can build to relative conclusions without necessarily needing to rely on volume. So it’s an album that definitely rewards patience, even if I’d still say some moments could be tightened up.

The concluding cover of Neil Young’s Don’t Let It Bring You Down is a great note to leave off on, though, kind of doubling down on how much this duo has evolved while still holding on to their core sound, as this is a fairly traditional cover (compare to Saint’s cover of You Are My Sunshine…), but unmistakably belonging to these two musicians: an arty, pop-folk single.