Atomic: Here Comes Everybody – review

Scandinavian quintet Atomic hurl together Ornette Coleman 's free-jazz legacy, Carla Bley 's ironic solemnities, Latin, postbop, circus-band cavortings and much more. Pianist Håvard Wiik and saxophonist Fredrik Ljungkvist share the composing here. The title track builds a rumbling drums groove (the inimitable Paal Nilssen-Love ) from spiky piano figures and plaintive long notes from trumpeter Magnus Broo . There are jittery marionette dances broken by improv eruptions and piano arpeggios (Kreuzberg Variations), elegant postbop sax swerves between dogged chords (Morphemes), and brass-band harmonies on Panama. A kind of Frankensteinian stomp becomes an uptempo jazz theme – with Ljungkvist swapping tenor sax for the guttural range of a baritone – on the closing Unity Toccata. It's Atomic's usual chemistry, but it still emits a lot of heat.