Yr Knives are back with "Stretch Bath," and it's a gem. The Chicago instrumental crew builds around Douglas McCombs, the bassist you know from Tortoise and Eleventh Dream Day, and a rotating cast of local post-rock lifers. This is the second look at their debut album Begin Yr Singing.
The first taste, "Fear&Trimbling," was a stunner: muscular, brainy noodling that swelled into an orchestral finale that flattened everyone in the room. If that track showed off the band's patience, "Stretch Bath" shows their range.
Think of McCombs' work on Tortoise's TNT back in 1998, that same push and pull between control and drift. There's a lineage here, and Yr Knives honor it while carving something of their own.
The interplay is loose but locked in. Every player gets a moment, and the whole thing breathes.
Chicago has always done post-rock right, and this is another reason why. Begin Yr Singing is shaping up to be a killer. Two tracks in, and the momentum is real.