American Don

Don Caballero evolved handsomely across their first three LPs, gradually aerating their signature asymmetrical crunch with moments of spacious, reflective beauty. But on American Don, the Pittsburgh instrumental outfit’s fourth album and final effort before their initial breakup, they made a definitive break with their past, shedding nearly all vestiges of metal-adjacent heaviness and in the process setting a new benchmark for outside-the-box underground rock. Stripped down to the trio of drummer Damon Che, guitarist Ian Williams and new bassist Eric Emm — who had been playing with Williams in the abstract avant-rock trio Storm & Stress — the band zeroed in on a mesmerizing sound world built around Williams’ twinkling loops and Che’s thunderous yet loose-limbed attack. Pieces like “Haven’t Lived Afro Pop” and “Ones All Over the Place” combine suitelike compositional grandeur with jazzy spontaneity, while “The Peter Criss Jazz” makes its way from a spacious, almost psychedelic groove to a jammy, festive Afro-Cuban-style breakdown. Meanwhile, Che’s signature double-kick barrage is still very much in the mix on tracks such as “Details on How to Get ICEMAN on Your License Plate,” combining with Williams’ overlapping lines to create a pleasingly disorienting blur. Elements of American Don would become clichés of the more cookie-cutter strains of so-called math rock — and would also lay the groundwork for Williams’ later, still-thriving project Battles — but here, Che, Willliams and Emm achieved something entirely novel, staking out an uncharted zone somewhere between progressive rock, post-hardcore, jazz fusion and ‘90s post-rock.