Don Caballero / WHAT BURNS NEVER RETURNS

“Yet another testament of pure musical genius from the wizards of Don Caballero. This album — probably their greatest effort to date and a keystone instrumental album — will make musicians stand open-mouthed in absolute amazement, wondering just how such music is written.” – Allmusic.com”As the purveyor of brainy, muscular instrumental rock, Don Caballero spent most of its early years labeled the “Geeks from Pittsburgh who don’t sing.” Now that the rest of the indie-rock world has warmed up to instrumental rock (see the popularity of Tortoise, et al.), Don Caballero reemerges from hiatus with its third full-length, What Burns Never Returns. Staying ahead of the learning curve, the band employs little of the muscle that marked its earlier efforts, instead adopting a more highbrow, abstract approach to its music making. The band is not improvising per se, but creating meticulously arranged, post-Kind Crimson-like songs that attack odd time signatures. Stunning in its acrobatic musicianship, intriguing in its relentless experimentalism, What Burns… is indeed a welcome return.” — Tad Hendrickson, CMJ NewMusic Report, 1998