One of the strongest threads through John Zorn's career, as a musician and label head, is a love for rock guitar. From Bill Frisell (before he moved to the West Coast, leaving his distortion pedal behind), Marc Ribot and Buckethead to his more recent championing of Jon Madof, Zorn has had a public love affair with hard guitar lines.

The newest name on his list is Yoshie Fruchter, a Washington, DC, native now living in Brooklyn, who�s four-piece Pitom seems tailor-made for Tzadik's Radical Jewish Culture series. Searing guitar lines shoot along the edge of surf and metal in a way more than a little similar to Ribot's playing, especially (given Fruchter's themes) in Zorn's Electric Masada. But Fruchter's band is more balls-out rocking than the Masada complexities, and Shanir Blumenkranz's fuzz bass at times pushes them over the top. Kevin Zubek's solid drumming is a constant force here, and the band is nicely rounded out by Jeremy Brown's violin and viola, often mirroring the taut guitar lines. There's nothing particularly new to be heard on the record, but for those who can't get enough of the Zorn brand of Radical Jewish Culture, here's some more.