Label: Northern Spy Records, 2021

Personnel - Marc Ribot: guitar, vocals; Shahzad Ismaily: bass, keyboards, backing vocals; Ches Smith: drums, percussion, electronics, backing vocals // Guests - Darius Jones: alto sax (#6,7); Rubin Khodeli and Gyda Valtysdottir: cello (#8); Syd Straw: background vocals (#3).

Whether skirting rock, jazz, blues or funk, the guitarist/composer Marc Ribot always creates something fresh and finds powerful messages to deliver in our turbulent times. Hope is his third outing with the revolutionary Ceramic Dog project, in which he teams up with the bassist Shahzad Ismaily and the drummer Ches Smith. They are seen at the height of their powers in nine energy-filled tracks that were a direct product of the pandemic lockdown.

“B-Flat Ontology”, pinned with a minor chord whose colors take me to a particular passage of R.E.M.’s “Drive”, serves as a harbinger of Ribot's discontentment and frustration. According to him, it’s a depressing song, but it’s also an ironic one, where he doesn’t spare shocking performing artists, rock stars and young guitarists playing arpeggios at high velocity, contemporary poets, post-modern philosophers and pretentious singer/songwriters - “Isn’t it amazing? It’s just amazing! I’m just amazed!”, he sings.

The old and the new combine on “Nickelodeon”, a rockified reggae with a slippery bass groove, steady backbeat and a Talking Heads-like chorus; and also on “Wanna”, whose strong melodic riff and danceable slap beat were maybe fetched from to the 1980’s, including traces of funk rock that are redolent of Cameo’s “Word Up!”.

The satirical “The Activist” covers a lot of stuff in the spoken word (“I don’t accept…, I refuse, I resist.”), which flows atop slick bass moves and funk guitar interjections. Yet, I personally go for the instrumentals, two of which are bolstered by the guest presence of alto saxophonist Darius Jones who infuses extrovert avant-garde forays with fiery tones on “They Met in the Middle”, a country song, and “The Long Goodbye”, where the sophistication of Robert Wyatt meets the melodic distortion of Sonic Youth.

If “Bertha the Cool” navigates the groovy seas of smooth jazz via warm guitar octaves and licks, then “Maple Leaf Rage”, featuring two guest cellists - Rubin Khodeli and Gyda Valtysdottir - has two distinct halves: the first, more atmospheric, has Smith chattering fluently with brushes, whereas the second morphs into a blistering electric rock in which influences of Zappa and then Pink Floyd are noticeable.

The trio concludes the album with a cover of Donovan’s psychedelic pop song “Wear Your Love Like Heaven”, which they transform into a sort of evocative ballad sung in a Lou Reed style.

Ribot is a necessary figure in the current musical panorama, and the eclectic Hope has so many great flavors to be savored.