The band name’s no feint — Jason Swinscoe’s ensemble draws off the nervier precedents of Henry Mancini, Quincy Jones, Lalo Schifrin, Roy Budd, and a host of other film score composers who made their name merging the symphonic and the jazzy to hard-boiled ends. But the film it inspires in the listener’s brain is likely more intensely noir than any cusp-of-the-millennium Hollywood director could swing; it makes L.A. Confidential’s grit feel Big Lebowski wacky by comparison.

– Nate Patrin