What Dali does with time, Zen Guerilla does with the sounds of the urban underground. This Delaware-based group, which fuses soul, Delta blues, gospel and garage rock, sounds as big as its singer, Marcus Durant, who stands 6-foot-seven (perhaps six-foot-nine with his afro fluffed). Its songs cut to the marrow without providing the lollipop that normally follows such an inoculative assault. Listening to Shadows' first six tracks is like being dragged across sandy ice by a bellowing disembodied voice and its back-up army of demonically animated instruments. The group gives listeners a breather with the instrumental "Subway Transmission," then gets back to the beating with "Dirty Mile," which takes you on a bumpy ride -- undercarriage-style -- before dropping you off in the Deep South, the site of the next track's morphined-out acid-folk tribute. The influences are obvious and mind-blowing in scope. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix return from the grave, shake hands with the Guerilla, engage in some brief musical conversation, then step back into the shadows.
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