Answers

Ui's third full-length appeared seven years after the group's debut LP, Lifelike, a precise, jam-heavy record that caught the emerging post-rock boom on its way up and found the band playing Rush to Tortoise's Yes. Answers isn't appreciably different from the rest of Ui's work, rich with bass-guitar melodicism and a percussive approach to music-making that comes from every instrument in the mix. The Ui sound is more powerful here, though, and it's all down to their recruitment of a pair of downtown N.Y.C. heads: new member — and second bassist — Erik Sanko (of Skeleton Key, Lounge Lizards, Yoko Ono) plus producer Bryce Goggin (Swans, Elliott Sharp, Band of Susans). Answers has a heavy downtown spirit, with standard instruments played in a unique fashion, and an aggressive interplay that's nearly antagonistic. (Listeners thinking of Liquid Liquid or Talking Heads are well on their way.) Second from the end comes the highlight, "John Fitch Way," nearly seven minutes of broadly riffing, constantly changing, post-rocking genius.