Avant Garden

If you ever wondered if those dog-eared ’70s-vintage jazz-fusion and Euro-prog albums you thumb past in used record stores had any impact, consider that there are people who not only are listening to them and liking what they hear, but are attempting to emulate those sounds themselves. Take Avant Garden, a local four-piece. This CD stretches five songs over 58 minutes; such titles as “Dragon Feed,” “Archemedes Tub,” Oceania,” “Into the Maelstrom” and “Path of the Farwinds” should give you an inkling of where Avant Garden is coming from. Think strident arpeggios, mostly layered by guitarist Brian Gould, over a busy rhythm section—Miles Gister on hyperactive bass, Jason Kenney on drums—over which Flamp Sorvari adds sax and flute filigrees. On “Oceania” and “Farwinds,” contemporary-instrumental icon Steve Roach guests on didgeridoo, percussion, atmospheres and loops. It’s an appropriately titled disc.