*1/2 Three Fish

THE QUIET TABLE

(Epic)

Imagine if the band Live directed their arrangements and lyrics through a prism of not Western Christianity but rather Eastern Buddhism (with its chanting), Hinduism (sitars), and Islam (with the qawwali-style wailing of Sufi mystics from Pakistan, or the modal-scaled, stringed instruments of North Africa). You'd have Three Fish, whose sophomore effort finds them just as spiritually curious as Live, and just as utterly humorless. (South African-born singer Robbi Robb even sounds like Live's Ed Kowalczyk.) A side project for Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament (the trio's third member is fellow Seattle rocker Richard Stuverud, drummer of veteran punk combo the Fastbacks), Three Fish create music that's impeccably played, tonally exotic, lyrically obtuse, and so heavy as to be almost unlistenable. The songs composed by Ament or Stuverud ("Tremor Void," "Transporting," "Resonate") are as melodic as anything their own bands have recorded; otherwise, this music is recommended only for its therapeutic value to the spiritually desperate or those who want to put themselves into a narcotic trance without the messy complications of actual drugs.

-- Gary Susman