(Cuneiform)

www.cuneiformrecords.com

The long-running Už Jsme Doma has been through a quarter century of mayhem, beginning its intricately-plotted, anarchically-energized career in then Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia. Early on, the band played in secret, risked imprisonment and joined in resistance efforts to form a more democratic state. Then, post-glasnost, they emerged onto a larger, international stage, touring Europe and the United States and once, serving as backing band for American art eccentrics, the Residents.

Now, 11 albums and hoards of members later (Pepe Cervinka is the band's ninth  bassist), the band careens on. No founders remain. The last remaining original member was saxophonist Jindra Dolansky, and he left in 2001. Yet under the direction of longtime singer, songwriter and lyricist Miroslav Wanek, Už Jsme Doma plots a high-intensity, exotically complex course. It's prog from Prague, certainly, but there are also hints of marching band music, workingmen's chants, jazz, folk and even early 20^th century classical music in these hard-to-categorize tunes.

Caves is sung entirely in Czech, but liner notes reveal the songs to be preoccupied with the action of water on stone, the drip by drip erosion that can carve caverns out of solid rock or, perhaps, democratic freedoms out of oppressive regimes. The music, though, works more like a bag of hammers than a steady drip, punching out dense, conflicting, bayonet ridges of percussive sound. Drums, guitars, bass and keyboards all take a pounding in these songs, banged in intricate, staccato bursts, sometimes in unison, sometimes in overlapping synchronicity.  

But to continue the water metaphor , there are two main source of fluidity here. One is Wanek's voice, which soars in triumphant, Soviet-bloc certitude over all. He is joined, often enough, by a gang of male voices singing in unison, like some sort of asymmetrical, off-kilter opera chorus, shouting rhythmically ("Fascination") or executing complicated counterpoints as on frantic, manic "Reel." At other times, as on the oddly paced, quietly syncopated "Nugget," Wanek trades melodic lead with trumpeter  Adam Tomásek, who came into the band after Dolansky left. Tomásek's arrival set off a re-alignment of Už Jsme Doma, as Wanek began writing what had been lead guitar lines for trumpet.

Most of the songs are aggressively paced, with rapid interplay among guitar and bass and continuous explosiveness emanating from the drums. Parts are intricately plotted, interlocking with each other in tight yet unexpected ways. Intervals of lyricism - the stand-up bass and recorder tranquility of album-ending "Lullaby for Anezka" - show this band's sensitive side, as does a close reading of Wanek's lyrics. Yet, on the whole, Caves knocks you over with its ceaseless, exuberant energy. Granted, running water will wear down mountains in time, but a jackhammer is so much faster.

DOWNLOAD: "Nugget" "Fascination" JENNIFER KELLY