The Bad Plus

Look solely at the instrumentation of the Bad Plus -- acoustic piano, upright bass, drums, no vocals -- and you'd think they were a jazz trio. While that assumption's not wrong, it doesn't do them justice. These quirky Midwesterners have jazz chops and jazz panache, but they apply those traits with the muscle of a rock band. Oh yeah, they play rock songs, too: Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and Blondie's "Heart of Glass" on These Are the Vistas, the Pixies' "Velouria" and Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" on Give. A neat gimmick, and well executed -- especially the triumphant crescendos of the Sabbath cover -- but in the end, it's just a gimmick; the real rewards here are to be found in the band's own compositions. The droll singsonginess of "Keep the Bugs off Your Glass and the Bears off Your Ass" (Vistas) and the off-center lyricism of "Frog and Toad" (Give) demonstrate yet again that truly cool music sneers at the concept of category. (MAC RANDALL)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide