Empirical - Like Lambs: To The Slaughter

Empirical return with their second release on Whirlwind Recordings with a warning for our troubled times: their forebodingly titled eighth album, Like Lambs: To The Slaughter. Following vibraphonist and long-standing member Lewis Wright’s move to the USA, the award-winning UK jazz ensemble, featuring Nathaniel Facey on alto saxophone, Tom Farmer on double bass and Shaney Forbes on drums, have embraced a more flexible lineup. The trio enlist high-caliber guest artists to expand their sound, with long-time collaborators Ivo Neame on piano and David Preston on guitar lending their distinctive musical voices to the album.

A radical reworking of drummer Shaney Forbes’ unconventional long-form suite, first issued as a self-released EP, the album unfolds as an uninterrupted 51-minute musical story. It draws the listener into an irresistible maelstrom of changing emotional states, reaching its unsettling fever-pitch peak in the title segment of the suite. With this album Empirical have created an astounding and formally cohesive new articulation of their unique sonic world, made possible by their exceptional virtuosity and musical empathy and their daring emotional expressiveness. A standout release even by Empirical’s high standards.

Originally conceived during the pandemic, the album explores ever-more relevant questions around the human capacity for independent thought versus herd-like behavior, and the line between innocence and ignorance. “It’s a concept album in the sense that it’s got a story to tell about where we all find ourselves in the world today - over-stimulated and under-informed. It taps into the prevailing Zeitgeist that human civilization is hurtling toward collapse; something that is fired on by wilful ignorance and human destructiveness,” notes Forbes. While the music often reflects our frantic, split-attention world where individualism reigns supreme, it also represents a refusal to relinquish faith in the possibility of spiritual and intellectual enlightenment.

The album traverses the musical terrain between contemporary classical music, soundscape, post-bop and free jazz. The jazz of the 1960s has long been a guiding light for Empirical, not least in the way it represented Black musicians’ struggle for respect, freedom and civil rights, often drawing on their faith as a moral foundation. As Shaney Forbes explains: “Empirical has never been an overtly political band. But our music has always been informed by our personal experiences of living in a diverse, increasingly individualistic society, and all the frictions that can entail. We live in a moment where the progress that past generations have fought for is being attacked and division is tearing society apart. At the same time, each of us in Empirical has a personal faith and we share a belief that we can transcend the current crises. Our music is a manifestation of working together as a true collective and finding solutions through collaboration rather than competition.”