Imagine your typical old-school orchestra conductor, wincing each time an oboe played out of key, or when the violins didn't hit that andante right on the mark. The advent of sheet music created guidelines to follow, and afterwards symphonic music was all about exact mimesis. Jazz, the next big Western group-style, started to stray from that cohesiveness. Players improvised by bending pitches, playing multiple notes at once, and incorporating more abstract rhythm forms. Still, the band leader figure persisted for the most part.

Countless modern myths sprung from cats who were spooked by the Miles Davis aura, who evolved under Sun Ra's touch or were broken down by Glenn Miller's demanding zeal. It's kind of funny to see how a few instrumental rock groups have finally shed that figurehead position, and to hear them often described as leftfield. As far back as the 1910's, the Dadaists were participating in improvised sound collages. Decades of avant-garde "experimentalism," and what does the Western world get? A collective music dynamic, the basis of "primitive" tribal music for centuries.

Cerberus Shoal are one of those bands you kick yourself for not having heard earlier. What's shocking is that this bunch of kids from Maine, fresh out of high school, developed into such a fluid ensemble. They played a show at New York's contested art space ABC No Rio, and soon put out a self-titled 12". Their first album proper was And Farewell to Hightide. They took hold of the intricate guitar line characteristic of emo and stretched it, creating 10-minute epics buoyed by shimmering feedback and muted trumpet tones. Afterwards, the band saw the first of many lineup changes. Their next project, two improvisations set to films made by collaborator Tim Folland, lacked the previous album's impassioned vocals but made up for it with a sublime patience that made these 20-minute jams actually work.

Homb was released on Temporary Residence Ltd. in December, 1999. The Pitchfork audio team has finally completed a master list of the instruments involved, enabling us to finally write a review. In addition to the standard bass, guitar and drums, we've isolated tablas, wind chimes, didgeridoo, dholak, shakuhachi, various household toys, and the ubiquitous musical saw.

"Harvest" begins the album in ambience, yielding up an insectile wavering. Distorted vocal samples are barely audible, buried in the ochre mix. A pulse echoes incessantly, like a heartbeat. "Omphalos" is the album's most driven track. It starts off like it could go so wrong-- all conga taps and soft acoustics-- but then, an electric guitar elicits an impossibly enticing series of chords, and you're enveloped in layers of reverb and swirling drones. Rising horns announce an instrumental chorus that would might come off as cheesily epic if the moment wasn't so brief and sincere.

The production value on Homb is spacious, keeping the elements separate enough to avoid the muddiness of Spiritualized or Vibracathedral Orchestra. The obvious structural comparison is Godspeed You Black Emperor!, but Cerberus Shoal have been doing this long enough to be considered their contemporaries, and Homb's emotional palette varies with more subtlety than anything by those Serious Canadians.

"Myrrh (loop)" relieves, though, with raging chords that recall Mogwai's meanest pieces. The Gilmourian antics afterwards can be forgiven, too, because the flute solo near the end is so careful. And the oud melody and chanted verses on Homb's final number make it their most daring yet. They toe very close to the new age line, but are propelled away at the end by an undulating bassline groove. That's what strikes most about Cerberus Shoal's strange efforts-- from ethereal-emo to hippie-prog-- they always get it right.

-Christopher Dare