Part of what has set Garage a Trois apart from other jam/jazz/ funk aggregations is its intelligence and ability to follow through on a concept. 2005’s Outre Mer presented itself as a soundtrack to a French movie that didn’t exist, but it was done well enough to make the charade seem possible. On the new Power Patriot, the sound has changed a bit—Marco Benevento’s keyboards have replaced Charlie Hunter’s guitar—but the same governing intelligence remains. Enough attention is paid to the sound of each instrument in each song that each remains discrete, unified by a musical sensibility, not by the sameness of the instrumentation.

As the title implies, Power Patriot is often a muscular record. “Fragile” is anything but, and “Rescue Spreaders” is as disorientingly distorted as anything on the Flaming Lips’ Embryonic. It’s also often a very melodic album thanks to Mike Dillon’s vibes-based compositions. The highlight is “Dory’s Day Out,” a rather sweet piece that recalls the work of a number of Brian Wilson- influenced bands (the High Llamas come to mind).

On occasion, the album toes the waters of prog rock and Zappa-esque jazz, minus the Zappa, but its beauty is that the compositions rarely sound like set-ups for solos. Even at six minutes on the album, there’s a clear purpose for each piece that rarely includes lengthy solos. If anything, a few of these tracks could use someone to step out and burn for a bit.