s Dredd Foole details in the epic-hued liner notes to It’s Magnificent, but it isn’t War, a battle is brewing between art and greed, and musicians must do their part. The G.Ws and Cheneys among us are not merely rapacious realpolitik wolves that consciously abandon morality should it interfere with the agenda, but deluded ideologues that wield weapons of both morality and might. And this morality can be as restrictive and fatal to the arts as might can be to U.S. victims abroad. So some artistic defense must be mustered, if only so we realize a sizable United States underground exists that is capable of resisting the political climate.

Cold Bleak Heat stands boldly on the front lines. Luckily, they don’t battle with words. The lyrics of most protest songs are cringe-worthy. Unless you’re Bob Dylan, I believe left wing rhetoric is best left to Arundhati Roy. Musicians should fight in their own language, because music itself is a political battleground. Rock ‘n roll’s simply awful Negro rhythms disturbed white collar mamas and papas all the way to the White House. Space rock likely wouldn’t exist without some illegal substance use. And the relentless ass-grooves of psy-trance and acid-house are tinged with illegality, since they pulse in the background of a hundred hidden-camera exposes of ecstasy dealers at raves across America.

Most importantly for Cold Bleak Heat, the history of jazz is a struggle for artistic freedom in the face of dominant political and critical trends. And jazz—viewed as a white-hot tool for agitation and liberation rather than as an inoffensive cool-down after a long day in the office—still can be a weapon, because musicians fight for freedom (what an irony, considering the drivel dripping from the White House).

So onwards jazz soldiers.

The East Coast avant-garde sacrifices their best and brightest for Cold Bleak Heat. Paul Flaherty leaves behind an album-studded free jazz career to wield the tenor and alto sax like a pair of pistols, while drummer Chris Corsano tears himself away from the more high-profile Six Organs of Admittance and Sunburned Hand of Man. Also appearing? No less than No Neck Blues Band bassist Matt Heyner and trumpeter Greg Kelley of Boston’s nmperign.

Together the four show how raw and powerful free jazz can be. The horn-blowers race through the expected range of skronks and screes, but they save their best playing for elongated mourn-tones and spit-n’-sputter acrobatics. Meanwhile, Corsano bangs viciously on the drum kit, as if his salvation’s only a beat away.

But Heyner’s measured bass binds Cold Bleak Heat together. Without his minimal strumming and bowing, the group would shatter from sheer excess energy. But Heyner’s cello-like drones on opener “Never Give ‘Em What They Want” and his smooth plucking on “Love Conquers All Motherfucker” harness the power of the band, and channel the over-the-top antics of CBH into a taut musical structure. Heyner transforms the band from a rampaging bunch of vandals into a potent, organized force.

Once properly restrained, CBH sounds even more snarling and ferocious. Flaherty’s sax rages and moans through the album, as if it’s breaking things left and right and regretting it later. Kelley’s trumpets sounds calmer, but even his calm is threatening, like the icy stare of a man on the edge of a breakdown. Together with Corsano’s propulsive-but-never-predictable rhythms, the album teeters on the edge of total violence.

But often I wish Cold Bleak Heat held back a little more. The quiet opening of “The Blue Dabs of Varicose Veins” ends too quickly. In it, Kelley and Flaherty sputter softly and Corsano scrapes on his drums like a cat falling over trashcans in an alley. Heyner’s bowed bass rumbles distantly, a thunderstorm on the horizon. This section sounds dynamic and tense, and it could have been explored for the duration of the track. But then Corsano ups the tempo, and the group spills suddenly into the freewheeling madness that it left behind a mere three minutes before. A pity.

With a little more restraint in the mix, Cold Bleak Heat would be an indomitable force. But as they are, they still deliver a strong blow to the smug powers-that-be.