Cockfighters

What began with an out-of-nowhere appearance at the 2011 All Tomorrow’s Parties fest and an overdue television debut on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon later that year, the return of heavy-hitting post-grunge trio Chavez is solidified with the band’s first recording since the blistering 1996 gem Ride the Fader. Long a purveyor of super-tight rhythmic interplay, Chavez picks up where it left off with the three songs on the Cockfighters EP, with James Lo’s pulverizing drums wrestling with the bands’ signature wiry guitar patterns. “The Bully Boys” exemplifies Chavez’s textured aural onslaught, shifting moods seamlessly with a menagerie of counter-melodic ferocity. Guitarist Clay Tarver’s ever-present backbone and harmonic contributions with singer/guitarist Matt Sweeney amplify the angular intensity of the opening track “The Singer Lied,” a brilliantly nuanced guitar-forward scorcher accentuated by indomitable drumming. Don’t call it a reunion, because they never really split up (case in point, at least one of these songs was written around 1997). A fantastic reintroduction to Chavez’s singular brand of post-rock majesty.