Troyka – Moxxy(Edition Records EDN1033. CD Review by Chris Parker)

In the publicity material accompanying their debut, eponymous release for Edition Records, Troyka (keyboardist Kit Downes, guitarist Chris Montague, drummer Josh Blackmore) described their music as ‘a visceral mash-up of rock, jazz and dance music [from] a post-hip-hop world where you can take whatever source materials you like and do your own singular thing with it’.

This, the band’s follow-up album, sticks to this (winning) formula: held together by the most imaginative and adventurous producer of keyboard sounds and textures since Django Bates (who wrote a set inspired by the trio for the Cheltenham Jazz Festival in 2011), Troyka move easily and uncontrivedly between full-on howling rock, rumbling grunge and more contemplative moments (their skilful use of dynamic contrast occasionally calling Kurt Cobain to mind), embellished by the consistently compelling guitar and electronic sounds of Montague and driven by the rackety but whip-smart drumming of Blackmore.

There are moody guitar pieces buoyed by organ sounds, passages featuring blazing riffs over hammering drum grooves, electronic squirts and slithers, bleeps and blurts – Troyka utilise as wide a range of sounds and textures as any band currently operating in this field, and the power and sheer ‘size’ of the music they produce would be impressive in a sextet; for a trio it borders on the miraculous.