As Patois Counselors close in on a decade of existence, they are back to confirm their standing as one of America’s most consistently forward-thinking rock units. Although it’s been an entire presidential term since the Counselors acclaimed sophomore album The Optimal Seat came out, Bo White’s group hasn’t been lying fallow. Over the last few years, the seven-person line-up has been busy writing, recording and gigging, resulting in Enough: One Night at the Daisy Chain, a live-in-the-studio document captured in Brooklyn while on tour. Released at the beginning of 2024, Daisy Chain works splendidly as both a greatest hits primer and a forthcoming album teaser. Alas, the teasing is over with the arrival of Limited Sphere, the third album from Charlotte, NC’s Patois Counselors. Once again, Ever/Never steps up to the plate to demonstrate their confidence in this hard-working crew.

In most contexts, a septet band configuration signals either a jazz ensemble or a mishmash of madcap noise. Beholden to no rules, Patois Counselors pluck from a selection of tactics as needed. Even augmented by extra players, each member reinforces their specific role, performing exactly what is needed for the track at hand. White’s post-modern muse needs plenty of room to stretch out and breathe and the big band spreads out the tent as far as it will go. White’s songs are rife with earned skepticism, sly asides and deft twists of tongues and licks. The manner in which the little details accumulate into the structure of the whole keeps the listener engaged. In other words, this is pop music for benevolent, discerning brainiacs, but regular people can dig it too.

For Limited Sphere, Patois Counselors relax their grip on the tense post-punk that they mastered long ago. Songs like “Fountain Of UHF,” “Serious Rider” and “Ranking Set” still touch on this style, but now White’s voice shares the air with woodwind instruments that add even more depth and texture to his songs. The effortlessly groovy, vaguely loungey “Marge Attack” conjures fond memories of early Stereolab, while “Return To Sensitivity” evokes the magic hour of twilight, insects buzzing and zipping through dusky sky. Foregrounding the haze and mist in these songs, you can detect traces of Eno’s Another Green World in Limited’s atmoSphere, particularly on the closing “Cathy Music.”

For their third proper album, Patois Counselors have crafted another seamless set of songs for practical fantasists and head-in-the-clouds cynics. The sphere outlined here may be limited, but the boundaries have been expanded significantly.

— Erick Bradshaw