Label: Knockwurst Records, 2023

Personnel - Marc Ribot: guitar, vocals; Shahzad Ismaily: bass; Ches Smith: drums + Guests - Syd Straw: vocals; James Brandon Lewis: tenor sax; Anthony Coleman: keyboards; Greg Lewis: organ; Oscar Noriega: clarinet; Peter Sachon: cello.

The incendiary trio Ceramic Dog - spearheaded by guitarist, vocalist, composer, and activist Marc Ribot and rounded out by bassist Shahzad Ismaily and spectacular drummer Ches Smith - returns with Connection, their best album to date. Exploring wide-ranging rock palettes and giving it some avant-garde jazz color from time to time, the trio displays expertise in coming up with inventive ideas with an often riotous sound that mixes past, present and future.

The title track opens the proceedings with explorative energy. It’s a lo-fi, heavy punk rock piece with a strong chorus that will appeal to fans of Descendants, Ramones and Buzzcocks. The next track, “Subsidiary”, is more experimental and darker in tone, marked by distortion, feedback and voice modulation. With time, it gains a certain metal-inspired rhythm that bites and ingrains - I’m imagining Paradise Lost without the massive, growling vocals.

“Soldiers in the Army of Love” is garage punk with a chorus that rekindles the best of ‘80s, whereas “Ecstasy”, compellingly sung by Syd Straw with magnificent lyrics by Ribot, takes us on a trippy euphoric voyage where also inhabit Zappa, The Doors, The Fall and The B52’s. Anthony Coleman guests here, playing Farfisa organ, and the last section evokes Santana’s psychedelic ‘70s phase.

Saxophonist James Brandon Lewis shines on “Swan”, which, in a way, is reflectively modal and spiritually uplifting, ending with excellent guitar work by Ribot. The saxophonist is also heard on a brief jazz passage of “Heart Attack”, a revolving, anarchist noise-rock smash with lots of swearing.

Variation in the aesthetics is a favorable point, and if “No Name”, an instrumental that straddles between Iggy Pop’s Stooges and The Velvet Underground, mixes jarred melodies with surprising beats with orchestral strings, then “Order of Protection” takes us to Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing”. After a noise-rock rendition of Schwartz/Dietz’s “That’s Entertainment” (not the pop hit by Paul Weller’s The Jam), delivered here with playful keyboard playing, there’s a mix of fanfare and afrobeat to be savored on the closer “Crumbia”, which features clarinetist Oscar Noriega.

Hallucinated yet illuminated, there’s guts and progressive activism in a revolutionary new recording that’s definitely worth digging into.