Am I crazy or is Chicago becoming the center of the universe? Pitchfork's offices are moving to Chi-town in a few short days, new record labels are blossoming down there like wildflowers, Steve Albini's Electrical Audio studio is booked solid through 2023, and every palooka and his brother is forming an instrumental rock band. What gives? What exactly is in that Lake Michigan water besides spent freighter fuel?

Whatever it is, keep it coming because music hasn't been this exciting in years. I wish I could say the same about Chisel Drill Hammer. Their debut EP is new on John Hughes III (son of every bratpacker's surrogate father) Hefty Records, and while it shows some promise, it's not terribly exciting. They're an instrumental guitar/ bass/ drum combo doing the now ubiquitous tricky- math- rock- by- way- of- Slint thing, without the style or intensity of their forebearers.

You expect a band like this to noodle, and they do, but their improvisations fall a little short of angel hair territory. "Elegy for the Original" has some gorgeous melodic interplay in between the double- time start/ stop bits, and "Shunt" has solid chord changes, but the rest of this record is pretty generic. On the plus side, the playing is great, as is the Albini- recorded sound. And I do have to give it up to these guys for keeping the songs nice and short, a real rare showing of restraint in this crowded genre. Give them some time to develop and explore more varied textures, and we could still see something great from Chisel Drill Hammer.

-Mark Richard-San