The martial band name is somewhat misleading: the quartet Phalanx doesn’t sound like a closed formation, but rather an open system. The relevant coordinates are jazz and something metal-avant-garde-like, hard to define. Anything can actually happen within these coordinates, and when the band speaks of “25 ideas” per composition, this is still modestly formulated.
The wealth of ideas and the beauty in Phalanx’s music come from poles which are traditionally still opposites: jazz on the one hand, rock and noise on the other. Or transferred to the instruments: the piano on the one hand, an electric guitar – distorted in many interesting ways – on the other. Jazz-rock, so to speak – but without everything that classic jazz-rock often makes so gruesome. So without narcissistic soloing around and screaking.
