Dredd Foole, Ben Chasny

This album has been a long time coming. Dredd and Ben first talked about collaborating back in the late '90s and it's now 2014 and the goddamn thing has only just arrived. Was the wait worth it? You bet your teeth it was. While this album would have been pretty great if they'd done it back in the day, the fact it has been allowed to age and grow of its own accord lends the project a richness and beauty beyond easy comparison. This specific album grew out of some shows Dredd and Ben have done together over the past couple of years. The communication between the two of them was deep and crisp, even from the very first note they played together. I don't recall if there'd been any rehearsing at all, but Ben's electric guitar was weaving around and through Dredd's vocals and acoustic strings as though he'd been doing it since he was a pup. Having seen Mr. Foole perform in a wide variety of situations over the past 33 years, I can assure you that he has rarely been in such telepathic company. From the extreme blabbermouth lockjaw of "Pressed for Illumination" to the relatively quiet melancholia of "Four Roses for Jack," the sounds on Drunk with Insignificance are utterly maxist. Dredd's songs have never sounded better, and Ben pulls an exquisite raft of riffs out of his sombrero. If you have a fondness for either of these legends of the contemporary underground, you owe it to yourself to check out this collaboration. It will shiver your timbers down to their very roots.