Gateway to Dignity

Even if you think you’ve heard it all when it comes to avant-rock extremity, Gateway to Dignity, the sole full-length from the short-lived, unjustly obscure St. Louis instrumental trio Grand Ulena, might still leave you stupefied. Formed in the early 2000s, the band bore a distant resemblance to bassist Darin Gray’s prior band, the forbidding and fiercely technical post-hardcore outfit Dazzling Killmen, but something far weirder was going on here. Through marathon practice sessions, Gray, guitarist Chris Trull (later of Yowie) and drummer Danny McClain honed an insular language that juxtaposed blinding speed and air-tight precision with spasms of abstraction, queasy tempo distortions, unsettling silences, maddening repetition and moments of stumbling disintegration. Their music rode a thrilling line between control and chaos, wild exhilaration and pure bafflement. Gateway to Dignity is the kind of album that makes most supposedly progressive music sound square by comparison.