On 'Blast Of Silence,' the third Golden Palominos LP, this band of artrock gypsies progresses even further in its quest to fuse aesthetic aspiration and popular appeal. The album is populist in the best sense: it assumes that listeners both deserve and are capable of appreciating vital music that defies categories. It is cult music for the masses.

The band's 1983 debut LP, The Golden Palominos,...

When you talk about the Golden Palominos, you're essentially talking about drummer Anton Fier, because this revolving-door, avant-garde supergroup was his idea (way back in 1982), and his sensibility – a brooding mix of corrosive bitterness and something ineffably lovely and sad – has dominated each of the five albums the group has released over the last eight years. An epic drummer and...