With its third album, III, Grassy Knoll takes the acid-jazz values of Miles Davis's On The Corner and melds them with the same kind of production sensibilities possessed by sound sculptors such the Dust Brothers and Tricky. As ambitious and dangerous as this may sound, Grassy Knoll leader Bob Green has proven that he has a Midas touch, and that talent is what allows III to come off as seamless and fully-formed as it does. Like a precision craftsman building his structure from the ground up, Green lays out III 's groundwork with David Revelli's lean, but funky, drumming, to which he adds his own dub-funk bass lines. With this foundation in place, moody electronic atmospherics and samples are added in to serve as the album's sonic walls and roof, resulting in a feel that is both ambiguous and menacing. In addition to these studio flourishes, producer Nicholas Sansano and Green add additional window dressing to their crib by using longtime associates Chris Grady on trumpet and downtown maven Ellery Eskelin on tenor sax, as well as odd bits of sampled noise, violins, cellos, flute and even Thurston Moore's textured guitar assaults. This is a masterful return that delivers the goods and then some.

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