Jim Black rocks.

His group Alas No Axis is all about that. Not about strong compositions or strong soloing, but strong playing and, at times, rocking out.

Black is a dexterous drummer with (past or presently) some of the best bands to work consistently through the '90s, notably the now defunct Bloodcount and Ellery Eskelin's great trio with Andrea Parkins. He can cover a lot of ground, but his most exciting move is a sudden, driving beat. Not an organic escalation to a heavy pulse, but a sudden, pounding, sometimes momentary, well, rock-out.

For Splay, as on the group's previous self-titled disc (also Winter & Winter), Black uses two players with whom he's worked a lot in New York: reed player Chris Speed and bassist Skuli Sverrisson, and adds guitarist Hilman Jensson, who also plays "wood grain box with black dials" and "other small boxes" (other instruments credited are "buried guitar," "Tiny keyboard," and "attachables" - the band even has a rock group's sense of liner-note humor.

Often times, Black and Sverrisson play with a prog-like precision while the other two oscillate between fitting flute-and-acoustic-guitar themes to out-and-out blowing and banging. The same components, more or less, as used on their previous disc, but here in a more surprising and less organic mix. None of the elements seem particularly new, but the mix is bright and, at the right moments, rocks.