A fantastic new album from the crushing industrial prog ensemble led by bassist James Hugget that takes their punishing robo-Zeuhl workouts one step further into pure awesomeness with the addition of singer Elaine di Falco. The band's last album The Dematerialized Passenger was a big hit here at C-Blast two years ago when it came out, and that disc has remained one of my favorite slabs of sludge/prog/free jazz heaviosity ever since. The group's membership spans the Atlantic with American musician James Huggett (bass guitar, guitar, electronics and drum programming) and UK musicians Martin Archer (alto and soprano sax, bass clarinet, violin, electronics) and Mick Beck (bassoon) all returning from the last album, and joined by Myrrhia Resneck on baritone sax, Mike Ward on flute and bass flute and the aforementioned Ms. di Falco on vocals and piano. Combat Astronomy are a punishing fusion of complex Godflesh style drum machine rhythms and Magma influenced prog that plows through a dense storm of free jazz horns and uber cool noir-jazz sax lines that honk and squeal alongside the brutally heavy e-bass riffs rumbling and snaking around the mechanoid doom rhythms, those drum machine beats executed in severe, militaristic rhythms that move in strange time signatures. And like on the previous album, these complex arrangements move through a haze of electronic effects and heavy ambient drones, coating the tracks in a cold, textural aura.

The big difference between this new album and their last one is Elaine di Falco, a former member of the prog groups Caveman Shoestore and Thinking Plague whose smoky singing style brings a whole 'nother shade to the previously all-instrumental outfit. Her haunting voice adds elements of melody and intimacy that were almost totally absent from the cold, inhuman repetition and blazing jazzisms on The Dematerialized Passenger while acting as another contrasting instrument in juxtaposition with the other musicians, and moves from multi-tracked vocal harmonies to soft sultry crooning, swirling above the grinding rhythm section and clusters of sparring horns. I'm really hoping that she continues to work with the group of future recordings. Highly recommended and extremely cool jazz/prog heaviness for fans of both jazzcore bands like Painkiller, 16-17 and Last Exit and the mechanistic doom of Godflesh.