Second Grand Constitution and Bylaws, Hurqalya
is the follow-up to
Secret Chiefs 3
' excellent 1996 debut,
First Grand Constitution and Bylaws
. And like its predecessor, the music is a combination of
Ennio Morricone
movie scores,
world
music, experimental
noise rock
, and
heavy metal
. But this musical mix is used in an extremely unorthodox and unpredictable way -- they don't play it safe by lumping all the similar styles together. For example, they'll follow up a beautiful guitar interlude (the album's opener,
"The Rose Garden of Mystery"
) with a jarring surf rocker (
"Waves of Blood"
), which will then lead to a reverb-drenched freak-out (
"Broken Glass Hearse"
). But the real story on the sophomore effort by
is guitarist/leader
Trey Spruance
. In addition to guitar, he produced and engineered the album, filled in for missing bassist
Trevor Dunn
(still a member of the band), and wrote eight of the record's ten tracks. Due to the all-encompassing vision of
Second Grand Constitution
, it becomes obvious that a lot of work was put into it, and the end result is one of 1998's most rewarding, original, and ambitious recordings. ~ Greg Prato