Ahleuchatistas

What You Will

This Asheville, N.C., trio’s math rock is a series of screeds against war, for human rights, even corporate malfeasance. The nuance: There are no words. The rub: It’s mostly rehearsed. A free-jazz stepchild of Don Caballero, Ahleuchatistas have more swerves, rougher time changes, mini-improvisational sections and not a hint of distortion or studio trickery.

??
On opener “Remember Rumsfeld at Abu Ghraib,” bass and drum roll over aloof guitars, acting as communiqués between the Pentagon and Iraq, trying to answer the question: Was the Secretary of Defense complicit in the atrocities happening at the POW outpost? “Shell in Ogoniland,” about the oil company’s mistreatment of people in Niger, sounds like the gurgling of a viscous liquid — oil, maybe — created by a sludge-like bass groove and doubled bass drum kicks.

??
For all their technical abilities and political ideologies, the Ahleuchatistas’ most poignant crusade may be against the necessity of the written word. 4 stars

?’‘??
Ahleuchatistas play the Drunken Unicorn Wed., Oct. 25, with Kayo Dot and Sound of Seventythree.

’’